ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's former prime minister Imran Khan's party on Thursday said it narrowly escaped a "planned assassination attempt" after being shot in the leg during a gun attack on its 'long march' convoy, sparking nationwide protests. Happened.
The attack took place when Khan was marching towards the capital to pressurize the government to hold early elections. The movement began last Friday in Lahore and makes daily stops on its way to the capital, Islamabad, where the convoy had planned to reach by November 11. Khan's supporters were crammed into trucks and cars in the convoy, but many were also marching. feet.
The former caravan of the PM was to stop at Wazirabad in Gujranwala district of Punjab today, Thursday. Wazirabad is about 200 kilometers (120 mi) from Islamabad.
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According to a statement issued by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, Khan and his close senator Faisal Javed were injured in the firing of a shooter, who was on the ground, while the politician was on top of a container.
"It was a planned assassination attempt on Imran Khan," Khan's aide Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said. He said that an automatic weapon was used. "There were no two ways about it: It was a narrow escape."
Dr Faisal Sultan, who is in charge of Khan's medical care, told reporters outside Shaukat Khanum Hospital that he was "stable".
An infectious disease specialist in Lahore said, "He has got bullet shards in his leg." "He has been taken to the operation room."
The Sultan declined to elaborate, saying more details would be shared after a thorough investigation.
Following the gun attack, photographs and video footage shared by social media and TV channels showed Khan supporters taking to the streets in several cities across the country, including Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and Peshawar.
PTI supporters blocked the Shahra-e-Faisal, a major road through the country's financial capital Karachi. Protests were held at at least 24 different places across the city, leading to severe traffic jams.
Supporters took to the streets in Lahore, Punjab, Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit as well as in the Khaplu Valley in the remote Gilgit-Baltistan region.
As questions raged across the country whether the protest movement would continue after the shooting incident, Senator Faisal Javed said it would.
"Imran Khan is safe," he told reporters outside the hospital, covered in blood with a white salwar kameez and a bandage on his face. "Our [PTI] spirits are high, and God willing, this movement will not end."
According to footage of the shooting shared on TV channels and social media, a Khan supporter had grabbed a man from behind at the gathering. After that he tried to run away.
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Later, TV stations aired footage of a man they said was the shooter, who appeared to be in his twenties or thirties. He claimed to have acted alone in his desire to kill Khan.
Khan's close aide and former governor Imran Ismail told Geo News that three bullets were fired in Khan's left leg. He praised his leader's bravery, saying that during the chaos that followed the shooting, he tried to pacify his supporters and told them "not to panic".
He claimed that Khan was "bleeding profusely" and that a bandage was tied around the former prime minister's leg before being taken to a hospital in Lahore.
According to Ismail, Senator Javed was shot in the face and hand.
TV footage showed Khan being loaded into a bulletproof car with a bandage across his leg, with media reporting that he was being taken to a hospital. Additional footage shows a winner Khan being pulled out of a container by supporters.
Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif condemned the firing "in the strongest terms" and prayed for Khan's recovery in a Twitter post. He also directed Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah and Punjab Police Chief to initiate investigation.
PTI leader and former Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari accused Sanaullah of threatening Khan and said he should be arrested for attempt to murder.
The nation will hold string pullers, establishment accountable for this deadly attack on Imran Khan,” she said on Twitter, referring to the mighty military.
Khan, once widely believed to have the backing of Pakistan's powerful military establishment, is believed to have been expelled from the army in April following his expulsion through a motion of no confidence.
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The former prime minister, as well as members and supporters of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, have criticized the Pakistani military, which has ruled the South Asian country for nearly half of its 75-year history, and The army chief, for failing to intervene to prevent his expulsion, which he claims was part of a US-backed "foreign conspiracy".
Washington, Khan's current political opponents, and the military all deny the allegations.
The army's media wing expressed "sincere prayers" for Khan's "quick recovery and well-being" in a statement issued after the shooting.
Political violence has a long history in Pakistan. Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in a gun and bomb attack in the city of Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, in December 2007.
After being deposed by a military coup, her father, former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was hanged in the same city in 1979.
Saima Shabbir and Aamir Saeed in Islamabad contributed, as did Naimat Khan and Zulfiqar Kunbhar in Karachi, Rehmat Mehsud in Peshawar, and Nisar Ali in Khaplu Valley.