PTI leader Pervez Khattak has announced his decision to step down from his party position, hours after reports that he was detained, along with Asad Qasier, in Islamabad on Thursday.

“Right now, I step down from the party position,” he said in a video statement. “I will decide future course after discussion with other party leaders and friends.”

He added that whatever “propaganda” was being shown on the television was not appropriate and he took the decision after much thought.

“Whatever happened in this country was not good. I have already condemned the May 9 incident. May such a thing never happens again,” he said, adding that the political atmosphere of the country was not right.

The two senior members of PTI were detained when they arrived in the federal capital from Peshawar, sources told Aaj News. It was later confirmed by former prime minister Imran Khan in a tweet. They arrived in Islamabad for talks.

Both the leaders arrived in Islamabad from Peshawar where they were taken into custody, they added. Khattak and Qaiser were being shifted to an “undisclosed location”.

The development comes moments after the Anti-Corruption Establishment arrested PTI President Pervaiz Elahi in Lahore in a corruption case.

Khattak and Qaiser are part of the seven-member committee formed by PTI chief Imran Khan on May 27 to hold negotiations as the party leaders continued to be arrested by the government.

They also include Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Haleem Adil Sheikh, Aon Abbas Buppi, Murad Saeed, and Hammad Azhar. Some of the leaders from the committee are either in jail, hiding from arrests, or being speculated about leaving the party amid PTI’s mass exodus.

Later Imran Khan in a tweet confirmed the development. He claimed that they were being holed up to quit the party.

“Two of our senior members from the negotiations committee I had formed, Pervez Khattak and Asad Qaiser, were called for a meeting by the intelligence agencies,” he said.

“They [Khattak and Qaiser] have now been illegally detained in a safe house and are being forced to quit PTI for their release. In the law of jungle, might is right and the weak have no protection,” he said.

Pakistan is beset by political turmoil as Khan’s party has faced a countrywide crackdown since his own arrest on May 9 for suspected graft sparked widespread protests that saw mobs ransacking state installations, including military assets.

Dozens of top and mid-tier leaders in the PTI have been arrested alongside hundreds of Khan supporters since the violent protests of May 9. Many have quit the party after being released while other leaders remain on the run to avoid arrest.

Khan, who denies wrongdoing, says the arrests are part of a campaign to dismantle his party and that the state is using pressure tactics to force out his aides. The government denies this and says his aides were leaving of their own volition.

Khan has been embroiled in a tussle with Pakistan’s military since he was removed from power last year in a parliamentary no-confidence vote he says was orchestrated by the country’s top generals. The military denies this.