Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, who survived an alleged assassination attempt last week, has ‘outshined’ India’s Bollywood superstars Shahrukh Khan and Salman Khan in acting skills, his bête noire Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the chief of the ruling coalition Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), said on Monday.
“Why is he being treated at a cancer hospital for bullet injuries?” he wondered.
Khan had undergone surgery for bullet injuries at the Shaukat Khanum Hospital owned by his charitable organization, which he set up in his mother’s memory a few years ago.
The attack on Imran Khan was a “drama”, the Maulana said, according to the media reports on Monday.
Imran Khan, 70, suffered bullet injuries in the right leg on Thursday last week. One person was killed and four others were wounded when a gunman fired shots at them in Wazirabad in the Gujranwala district during their “long march” from Lahore to Islamabad to press their demand for mid-term elections.
The former PM, who is Chairman of his political outfit, the Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaf (PTI), was discharged from the Lahore hospital on Sunday after undergoing successful surgery. He was moved to a private residence in Lahore, the reports said, adding he is likely to resume his rally in the next few days.
Casting doubts on the injuries Khan sustained, PDM and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F) chief Rahman said the ex-PM “outshined Bollywood stars Shahrukh Khan and Salman Khan in acting skills,” the Express Tribune reported.
“Initially, I had sympathized with Imran Khan upon hearing about the Wazirabad episode, but now it seems that it was a drama,” they quoted Rahman as saying in the Dawn newspaper.
Rahman said the confusion surrounding Khan’s injuries was enough to raise eyebrows. It was not clear whether “a single shot was fired at Imran or more” and whether the injury was “on one leg or on both,” the report added.
The Maulana said it intrigued that Khan “was taken to Lahore instead of being admitted to a nearby hospital (in Wazirabad).”
He also contested the PTI’s claim that Khan was injured by “broken pieces” from bullets fired by a man on Thursday last week.
“How is it possible that a bullet broke into pieces? We have heard about a piece from a bomb, but not a bullet.” “Blind people have accepted Khan’s lies. We also condemned the (shooting incident) when we heard about the attack on Khan… whether they hit him with one, two, or four bullets or fragments. We have heard bomb fragments but heard of bullet fragments for the first time,” the PDM chief remarked.
The JUI-F chief, while referring to a statement of the PTI chief’s physician, said he heard for the first time that the “aorta is also present in the shin.” “There are contradictions in the statements of the doctors,” he said.
Shaukat Khanum Hospital CEO Dr. Faisal Sultan on Sunday said that Khan needs at least a few weeks to rest to be fit to resume political activities.
However, addressing a press conference from the hospital on Sunday, Khan said the long march would resume on Tuesday from the point in Wazirabad where the incident occurred.