LAHORE, Nov 3 (Reuters) – Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan was shot in the shin on Thursday when his anti-government protest convoy came under attack in the east of the country in what his aides said was a clear assassination attempt.
Khan, ousted as prime minister in a parliamentary confidence vote in April, was six days into a protest procession bound for Islamabad, standing and waving to thousands of cheering supporters from the roof of a container truck when the shots rang out.
Several in his convoy were wounded in the attack in Wazirabad, nearly 200 km (120 miles) from the capital. Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb said a suspect had been arrested.
“It was a clear assassination attempt. Khan was hit but he’s stable. There was a lot of bleeding,” Fawad Chaudhry, a spokesperson for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, told Reuters.
“If the shooter had not been stopped by people there, the entire PTI leadership would have been wiped out.”
In a statement, the military called the shooting “highly condemnable”. Khan, 70, had accused the military of backing the plan to oust him from power. Last week, the military held a news conference to deny the claims.
“I heard a burst of bullet shots after which I saw Imran Khan and his aides fall down on the truck,” witness Qazzafi Butt told Reuters.
“Later, a gunman shot a single shot but was grabbed by an activist of Khan’s party.”
In purported footage of the shooting, being run by multiple channels but unverified by Reuters, a man with a handgun is grabbed from behind by one of the people at the gathering. He then tries to flee.
TV channels showed a suspected shooter, who looked to be in his twenties or thirties. He said he wanted to kill Khan and had acted alone.
“He (Khan) was misleading the people, and I couldn’t bear it,” the suspect said in the video. The information minister confirmed the footage was recorded by police.
No one had yet been charged with the attack.
Khan – who was after his removal from office convicted by Pakistan’s election commission of selling state gifts unlawfully, charges that he denied – had been whipping up large crowds on his way to Islamabad in a campaign to topple the government of rival Shehbaz Sharif.
Sharif condemned the shooting and ordered an immediate investigation.
