ISLAMABAD: Imran Khan, a former prime minister of Pakistan, was wounded in the shin on Thursday during an attack in the east of the country in what his aides said was a clear assassination attempt.

Khan, 70, who was deposed as prime minister in April, was standing on top of a container truck six days into a miles-long protest procession and waving to thousands of applauding followers when shots rang out.

Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb reported that a suspect had been detained following the attack at Wazirabad, about 200 kilometres from Islamabad, where several other members of his convoy had been injured.

A handgun-wielding man is grabbed from behind by one of the attendees in the alleged shooting footage that numerous channels are airing. Then he tries to run away.

A man who appeared to be in his twenties or thirties was shown on TV channels as the alleged shooter. He said that he had acted alone and had planned to assassinate Khan.

The suspect is heard saying in the video, "He (Khan) was misleading the people, and I couldn't handle it." The video was reportedly captured by police, according to the information minister.

No one has been put on trial for the attack as of yet.

On his trip to the capital Islamabad,  Khan had been mobilising a sizable throng in an effort to overthrow his adversary Shehbaz Sharif's administration.

There were rumours that one person had been killed in the incident, according to a member of  Khan's party.

It was obviously an attempt at assassination. Khan was injured, but he is doing well. Fawad Chaudhry, a spokesman for Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, told Reuters that there was a lot of bleeding. "The entire PTI leadership would have been wiped out if the shooter had not been stopped there by bystanders."

"It was a well-planned assassination attempt on Imran Khan, the assassin meant to kill Imran Khan and the leadership of PTI, it was not a 9 MM burst, it was an automatic weapon burst, there are no two opinions about that, it was a narrow escape," he wrote on Twitter.

Following the incident, Khan was taken from his vehicle and photographs in the local media showed him waving to the audience.

He was brought to the hospital in Lahore as PTI leaders demanded justice and protesters flooded the streets in some areas of the nation.

Political violence has a long history in Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister, was killed in a bomb and gun attack in December 2007 in the nearby city of Rawalpindi after holding an electoral rally.

After being overthrown by a military coup, her father, former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was hanged in the same place in 1979.

From the hospital, PTI coworker Faisal Javed, who was also injured and had blood stains on his clothes, said to Geo TV: "Several of our colleagues are hurt. One of them is reported to have died.

The shooting was denounced by Prime Minister Sharif, who also commanded a prompt probe.

Khan has conducted demonstrations around Pakistan since being overthrown by a legislative vote, inciting opposition against a government that is battling to rescue the economy from the disaster that Khan's administration left it in.

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