[ad_1]
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said he escaped an assassination attempt because he fell on his leg as the second gunman fired at him.
At a press conference at a hospital in Lahore on Friday evening, a day after he was shot in the town of Wazirabad, Khan, 70, described the attack as he led a march of supporters to the capital Islamabad for early elections.
Sitting in a wheelchair, his right leg bound and his left leg heavily bandaged, Khan accused Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who replaced him following a no-confidence motion in April, of masterminding the attack along with Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah and Major. General Faisal Nazir, Director General of the country’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence.
“These three have decided to kill me,” he said.
The government denies the allegation and blames the assassination attempt on a lone assailant motivated by religious extremism. Calling Mr Khan’s allegations “baseless and irresponsible”, the army said it was taking legal action against him.
Mr Khan was looking out at the crowd when bullets hit his modified container truck as it slowly made its way through a crowd in Wazirabad, 170km east of Islamabad.
“Bullets hit my leg and as I was falling there was another explosion,” he told reporters.
“There were two men, and if they had been better coordinated, I would not have survived.
“One of them was caught and he was called a fanatic. He was not a fanatic – there was an elaborate plan behind it.”
Naveed Ahmed, who was arrested for the shooting, hails from a poor village near where Mr Khan was shot dead.
In a video leaked to the media by the police, he accused Mr Khan of “misleading the public”.
He said he was angry about the noise from the rally disrupting the call to prayer that calls Muslims to mosques five times a day.
Pakistani media reported that at least seven to eight bullets were fired at the attacker before he was subdued by supporters of Mr Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party.
The shooting, which killed one person and wounded 10 others, deepened the political crisis that has gripped Pakistan since Mr. Khan’s ouster and comes as the country struggles after devastating floods and an economic crisis.
Mr Khan said he would resume his so-called “long march” in the capital after recovering from his wounds.
“One bullet hit my upper leg, one bullet passed near my main artery and another one stopped near it,” he said, calling his survival a “mercy from Allah”.
“The day I’m fine, I’ll be back on the streets.”
He warned that an assassination attempt on him could spark widespread anti-government protests like those in Sri Lanka earlier this year.
“Either we will have a peaceful revolution or a bloody revolution,” he said. “People will take to the streets like in Sri Lanka. There will be chaos.”
Earlier on Friday, scattered protests broke out across the country after afternoon prayers, with police deploying tear gas in several cities to control crowds.
Former finance minister and party leader Asad Umar said in a Twitter message that Khan’s party has called on supporters to join protests in all major cities of the country at 5 pm on Saturday.
Pakistan has witnessed several political assassinations in the past, including its first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, who was shot dead during a rally in Rawalpindi in 1951.
Another former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, was killed in 2007 when a large bomb exploded near her vehicle as she greeted supporters in the city of Rawalpindi.
– with reporting from AFP and Bloomberg.
Updated: November 05, 2022, 8:49 AM
[ad_2]
Source link
