Pakistan: Imran Khan, 4 others injured in gunfire during “long march”
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Former Prime Minister Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi, who is attempting to force a mid-term poll and return to power, was injured, along with four others, on Thursday when a gunman opened fire at him during his party’s rally in Pakistan’s Punjab province.
The attacker was soon arrested. The former PM’s supporters rushed Imran to a hospital.
Escaping narrowly from serious injuries, he was seen bandaged on his right leg and moved into an SUV, the media reported.
The attacker fired at the former cricketer-turned-politician from below when he was standing atop a container truck to address a public meeting during his ongoing “long march” from Lahore to Islamabad to force the Shehbaz Sharif government to announce mid-term elections to National Assembly. At least four of his party leaders were injured, too.
The incident — at Wazirabad in Gujranwala, about 200 km from Islamabad — came just seven months after they unseated him from power upon losing the army establishment’s confidence. He has since been campaigning against the Sharif-led coalition government and the Army’s intelligence agency ISI’s “interference” that “undermined democracy”.
Thursday’s attack on Imran Khan brought back chilling memories of how former PM Benazir Bhutto was shot dead during a rally in 2007.
Barely an hour before he was fired upon, he had told supporters in another part of the town, where he was scheduled to deliver a speech, that they should accompany him to a different area instead, promising to speak there, Geo reported.
The firing occurred minutes after he disembarked from his SUV and got atop the container’s roof for his speech.
The gunman fired from a pistol from the left side of the place where Imran Khan was standing; he could not get close enough for a clear shot in a tight crowd, reports said.
Local channel Geo News reported that chaotic scenes broke out near his reception camp at Allahwala Chowk after the gunshots. After he lost the army establishment’s confidence in April, the Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader has been demanding the resignation of the new central government formed by his two primary opponents that are otherwise rivals of each other too, the Sharifs’ Muslim League (PML-N) and the Bhuttos’ Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).
