Imran Khan, Pakistan’s former prime minister, is now out of danger after surviving a shooting at a political protest march in Pakistan. However, he was badly injured as he suffered a bullet in his leg.
His party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), called the incident an attempt at assassination in which one person was killed and many others were injured.
A video shared by PTI showed that hours later, Imran’s supporters protested in front of Corps Commander House in Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Shooting at Imran Khan’s protest site
Unidentified gunmen fired shorts at the container-mounted truck carrying Imran Khan in Punjab province.
Imran Khan was leading a protest march to Islamabad demanding early elections. He was on the seventh day of a nationwide tour. Videos surfaced of the incident showed Khan waiving from an open-topped truck outside the Gujranwala town in Punjab province and at the same time shots were fired creating panic among people including Khan’s party members. According to local news channel Geo News, many people were injured.
As fires were shot one bullet hit the former prime minister in his leg, according to PTI’s senior leader Asad Umar. He added, “Yes, he has been shot, there are pellets lodged in his leg, his bone has been chipped, and he has also been shot in his thigh.” A senior PTI politician Faisal Javed who was also Khan’s close ally was wounded in the head and received treatment.
The incident refreshed a similar old memory wherein former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was shot dead during a rally in the year 2007.
He was taken to Lahore for treatment and became stable, Umar said.
Police arrest a suspect
Police said that one suspect was arrested on Thursday with a 9mm pistol and two empty magazines. According to reports, there might have been two gunmen-one had a pistol and another one was carrying an automatic rifle.
The Ministry of Information claims that an unnamed man carried out the attack whose confession video it released. The man can be seen in the video saying,“ I wanted to kill Imran Khan” because he “was misleading people,” adding he had no accomplices.
He further reveals his intentions. “They (Khan’s rallies) were playing music and shouting from the loudspeakers as the call for prayer was happening. I didn’t like this happening on our soil,” he says.
The deadly incident was unanimously condemned by former and current pakistani cricketers. Imran Khan is a former cricketer and was also the Pakistan cricket team captain who won the country a World cup.
Just before the shooting, Imran Khan had instructed his supporters to join him to another section of Wazirabad town where he was planning to give an address instead, promising to speak there.
