Reporting snapshot · 8 November 2026. The plan is a proposal: no draft amendment or budget bill has been published, and the government has not explained how the legislation would be enacted while Khyber Pakhtunkhwa remains under governor's rule. The funding and vacancy figures are official presentations, not independently audited totals.
What happened
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s government announced on 8 November that it plans to establish faceless anti-terrorism courts and spend Rs70bn on the police and Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) this year, as part of a wider security overhaul. Governor Faisal Karim Kundi and Home Secretary Amjad Ali Khan presented the plan at a briefing at the Governor House in Peshawar, according to Geo News and The Express Tribune.
Geo News reported that Khan said legislation would be introduced for faceless courts, in which the identities of judges, witnesses, police personnel and others would remain confidential. The government also plans to increase intelligence-based operations and install anti-drone systems in Dera Ismail Khan, Lakki Marwat and Bannu, the broadcaster said.
The Express Tribune reported that a presentation by Adviser for Home and Tribal Affairs Kifayatullah Khan and the home secretary proposed allocating Rs59.8bn to the police and Rs10.3bn to the CTD. It set targets for the first 100 days and a further set for 180 days. Governor Kundi said the federal government had agreed to support a provincial request for Rs160bn.
The briefing comes as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa remains under governor’s rule, imposed on 11 October after the federal government invoked emergency powers, a standoff tracked in KhabarWire’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa emergency hub. The reports do not say whether the proposed amendment would be brought before the provincial assembly or introduced through another route.
What the plan changes
The faceless-court proposal is the central legal change. Under the plan described by Geo News, judges, prosecutors, witnesses and police officers would be identified by title or code rather than by name, and the parties would retain a right of appeal to the High Court.
The government has not published a draft bill, so the proposal’s scope is not yet known. It is unclear whether protection would be ordered case by case or applied to entire classes of cases, whether an accused could challenge being placed in the special procedure, whether the trial record would be sealed, and whether the regime would have a time limit.
The funding and staffing targets are more specific. The home secretary’s presentation said the police force was short of 10,537 personnel and the CTD had 638 vacant field-operator positions, according to The Express Tribune. Governor Kundi put the total number of vacant police posts at 17,000, correcting an earlier figure; the reports do not reconcile the two counts.
The presentation also set targets to raise police surveillance coverage from 15 per cent to 60 per cent, night-fighting capacity from 18 per cent to 50 per cent, and anti-drone capability from one per cent to 50 per cent. It said the CTD had only 12 purpose-built facilities across the province’s 37 districts and planned to extend its infrastructure and operational reach to 34 districts. About 70 per cent of the proposed funding would go to the merged districts and 12 districts facing security challenges, Kundi said.
The plan is also a political intervention. The governor criticised the previous PTI-backed provincial government for failing to provide political ownership and for underfunding the force. The home secretary said the previous administration had approved Rs6.4bn for counterterrorism infrastructure in 22 districts but released only Rs1bn. The federal government had already approved a 250 per cent security allowance for eligible officers in 26 districts.
Why faceless courts are contentious
Supporters argue that anonymity is a necessary shield in a province where militants have repeatedly targeted police, judges and witnesses. Home Secretary Amjad Ali Khan said the proposed courts would protect witnesses, prosecutors and judges and allow cases against terrorists to be concluded more quickly, The Express Tribune reported.
Critics argue that secret courts remove safeguards that make a trial fair. When Punjab passed a comparable law in August, Al Jazeera reported that a single unnamed official could designate a case as a “special security case”, that the accused could not contest the designation, and that the identities of the judge, prosecutors, police and witnesses could be withheld. Lawyers and rights groups said the arrangement would make it difficult for a defendant to challenge evidence or test a witness’s credibility. Punjab’s law is now facing a constitutional challenge in the Lahore High Court, as KhabarWire reported.
The comparison is not exact. Punjab’s law sets out a detailed “special security case” mechanism; Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has so far announced only the principle and said legislation is coming. But the same questions arise: who decides that a case needs a faceless court, what evidence must support that decision, and how an appeal can work when the record and the participants are concealed.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa records far more terrorism violence than Punjab. Al Jazeera reported that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan account for more than 90 per cent of Pakistan’s terrorism deaths, while Punjab records a small share. The home secretary’s presentation said 1,003 members of the armed forces, 627 police personnel and 808 civilians were killed between 2024 and September 2026. In 2026 to September, it said, 255 soldiers, 302 police personnel and 304 civilians were killed, and security forces killed 3,788 terrorists over the previous three years. Those are official counts and have not been independently verified.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had not previously amended its anti-terrorism law to allow secret trials, Al Jazeera reported in September, even as Punjab and Balochistan moved in that direction. The announcement is therefore a notable shift for the province bearing the heaviest share of the violence.
What is still uncertain
The most important unknown is the text. Without a draft amendment, it is impossible to tell whether the KP proposal would resemble Punjab’s law, preserve more judicial control, or apply only to a narrow set of cases. The government has also not said whether the courts would be created under the existing Anti-Terrorism Act or through a new provincial statute, or how the federal government’s role in anti-terrorism law would affect the plan.
The legislative route is unclear. The plan was announced while the province is under governor’s rule, and the reports do not explain whether the provincial assembly would consider an amendment, whether an ordinance would be used, or whether the federal government would legislate. That procedural question could determine whether the courts are established quickly.
The money is also uncertain. The Rs70bn figure is the proposed package for the police and CTD this year, but the governor also referred to a Rs160bn request to the federal government. It is not clear how much of that request has been committed, when the funds would be released, or whether the Rs6.4bn previously approved for 22 districts will be fully disbursed. The vacancy figures do not match, and the government has not published a recruitment schedule for the 17,000 posts.
The 100-day and 180-day targets are administrative deadlines, not legal ones; they do not say when a bill will be tabled or when a faceless court would first sit.
What happens next
The first test is whether the government publishes a draft amendment. A text would show how the courts would be constituted, who could designate a case, what rights an accused would retain, and whether the secrecy would extend to the trial record and the appeal. It would also show whether the government intends to seek parliamentary approval or rely on emergency powers.
The second test is funding. The federal government’s support for the Rs160bn request, the release of money for the merged districts, and the recruitment of thousands of police officers will determine whether the plan moves beyond a presentation. Officials said the immediate measures would be completed within 100 days; that timetable is the first public test of implementation.
The legal challenge to Punjab’s law may also shape the KP plan. If the Lahore High Court suspends or strikes down Punjab’s special security case regime, the constitutional objections that succeeded there could apply with equal or greater force to a similar KP amendment. If the challenge fails, the judgment could give the KP government a template to follow.
