Hyderabad:Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman and former Pakistan Prime Minster Imran Khan survived a deadly attack on Thursday after an assailant reached close to his container and opened fire targeting Khan during the party's long march in Wazirabad near Gujranwala in Punjab, Pakistan.
One PTI worker was killed and around 14 others were injured in the attack. Khan sustained a bullet injury in the leg. The incident occurred near Allahwala Chowk in Wazirabad town of Pakistan's Punjab.
Footage run on several Pakistan television channels showed an injured Khan being moved from the container to another vehicle with the help of other people present on the site. The attacker has been arrested. Khan was in a lorry bound for Islamabad as part of a roadshow that began on Friday from Lahore. Khan is being treated at a hospital where his condition is said to be stable.
'Allah has given me a new life': Imran Khan after Pak rally assassination bid; India reacts "I saw a man(wearing a black coat) aiming his pistol at the container (carrying Imran Khan). Before he could shoot, I plunged and tried to stop him. During this scuffle, shots were fired. One person was injured in the attack. I pinned him down," said a member of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.
"Allah has given me a new life," Khan said while he was being treated at the hospital. India, meanwhile, has reacted to the attack and said it is monitoring the situation. "We are closely keeping an eye on the development and will continue to monitor the development. Don't have anything beyond that to say," MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said in a presser on Thursday.
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Pakistan Prime minister Shehbaz Sharif has taken notice of and “severely condemned” the firing incident at Imran Khan’s march. He instructed Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah to seek an immediate report on the incident from the IGP and chief secretary Punjab, according to a tweet from the Government of Pakistan’s official Twitter account.
Footage from a Pakistan news channel showed that 70-year-old Khan was hit in the right leg. Police shifted him to a bulletproof vehicle from the container he was riding at the time of the attack. The channel reported that one person has been arrested from the spot and police shifted him to an unknown location.
The shooting underscored the growing political instability in Pakistan, with both the government and Khan — a former cricket star turned Islamist politician — refusing to back down from their positions. The country’s powerful military has said that although Khan had a democratic right to hold a rally in Islamabad, no one will be allowed to destabilize the country. Authorities in Islamabad have already deployed additional security around the city to deter any clashes or violence.
An unspecified number of supporters from his Tehreek-e-Insaf party who were part of the march were also wounded, according to the announcement from the party. The attack happened less than a week after Khan began his march from Lahore, the capital of Punjab province, along with thousands of supporters.
Since his ouster in a no-confidence vote in Parliament in April, Khan has alleged that his ouster was a conspiracy engineered by his successor, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, and the United States — claims that both the new premier and Washington have denied. Sharif’s government has also said that there would be no early vote and that the next elections will be held according to schedule, in 2023.
Khan’s latest challenge to the government comes after Pakistan’s elections commission disqualified him from holding public office for five years for allegedly selling state gifts unlawfully and concealing assets as premier. Khan, who has challenged the disqualification in a pending court case, has said he would sue Chief Election Commissioner Sikandara Raja, who was behind the decision, for calling him a “dishonest person.”
It was also not immediately known if Khan's convoy would proceed on to Islamabad. Earlier, Fawad Chaudhry, a senior leader in Khan’s party, had said they plan to enter Islamabad on Friday. The attack also comes at a time when impoverished Pakistan is grappling with the aftermath of unprecedented floods that struck this Islamic nation over the summer, killing 1,735 people and displacing 33 million.
