- Former cricketer Imran Khan shot in the wrist
- “It was a clear assassination attempt,” says the aide
- Khan was leading the march in Islamabad to demand early elections
- Pakistan has a long history of political violence
LAHORE, Nov 3 (Reuters) – Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan was shot in the shin on Thursday when his anti-government protest convoy was attacked in the east of the country in what aides said which was a clear attempt at murder.
Khan, 70, who was ousted as prime minister in April, was six days into a mile-long protest procession, standing and waving to thousands of supporters from the roof of a container truck when they sounded shots.
Several others in his convoy were injured and Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb said a suspect had been arrested after the attack in Wazirabad, nearly 200 km (120 miles) from Islamabad.
In the supposed images of the shooting, which is carried out on several channels, a man with a gun is grabbed from behind by one of the people in the meeting. Then he tries to run away.
TV channels showed a man they said was the suspected shooter, who appeared to be in his twenties or thirties. He said he wanted to kill Khan and had acted alone.
“He (Khan) was deceiving people and I couldn’t stand it,” the suspect said in the video. The Minister of Information confirmed that the images were recorded by the police.
No one has yet been charged in the attack.
Khan had been raising large crowds on his way to the capital Islamabad in a campaign to topple the government of rival Shehbaz Sharif.
A member of Khan’s party said there were reports that one person had been killed in the attack.
“It was a clear assassination attempt. Khan was hit, but he is stable. There was a lot of bleeding,” Fawad Chaudhry, a spokesman for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, told Reuters.
“Had the shooter not been stopped by the people there, the entire PTI leadership would have been wiped out.”
He wrote on Twitter: “It was a well-planned assassination attempt on Imran Khan, the assassin planned to kill Imran Khan and the leadership of PTI, it was not 9MM but it was blasted by an automatic weapon, there are no two opinions about it being narrow. escape.”
LONG HISTORY OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE
Local media showed footage of Khan waving to the crowd after being evacuated from his vehicle following the shooting.
He was taken to hospital in Lahore as protesters poured into the streets in parts of the country and PTI leaders demanded justice.
Pakistan has a long history of political violence. Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was killed in December 2007 in a gun and bomb attack after holding an election rally in the city of Rawalpindi, next to Islamabad.
Her father and former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged in the same city in 1979 after being ousted in a military coup.
PTI colleague Faisal Javed, who was also injured and had bloodstains on his clothes, told Geo TV from the hospital, “Several of our colleagues are injured. We have heard that one of them is dead.” .
Prime Minister Sharif condemned the shooting and ordered an immediate investigation.
Since being ousted in a parliamentary vote, Khan has held rallies across Pakistan, igniting opposition to a government struggling to pull the economy out of the crisis the Khan administration left it in.
Khan had planned to drive the motorcade slowly north along the Grand Trunk Road to Islamabad, garnering more support along the way before entering the capital.
“I want all of you to participate. This is not for politics or personal gain, or to topple the government… this is to bring genuine freedom to the country,” Khan said in a video message on the eve of leave
Additional reporting by Aftab Ahmed, Sudipto Ganguly and Tanvi Mehta; Written by Krishna N. Das; Editing by John Stonestreet and Nick Macfie
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