Imran Khan Shot At Rally In Pakistan, 1 Killed, Many Injured
Imran Khan, former Pakistani prime minister, was shot during a rally in Wazirabad, Punjab, Pakistan, on Thursday afternoon. He was hit and was taken to a hospital in Lahore. In what his party described as a “assassination attempt,” a fan was slain and 13 others were hurt during the former cricketer’s continuous march to Islamabad against the army establishment-backed central government.
Mr. Khan, 70, was spotted waving as he was transferred into an SUV with his right leg wrapped, which was an early sign that the injury wasn’t life-threatening. Later, it was said that he was “out of danger.”
The attack brought back frightening flashbacks of how Benazir Bhutto, another former prime minister, was killed in 2007 while attending a rally. The attacker, who was eventually subdued and jailed, was seen on police camera claiming that no one was supporting him. He confessed to the camera, “I wanted to kill Imran Khan as he’s been deceiving the people. Unconfirmed sources said that there was a second shooter nearby with an automatic rifle.
Imran Khan was standing on a container truck, the focal point of his “Haqeeqi Azadi” (True Freedom) March, when the attacker, a young man, opened fire with a handgun from below. Imran Khan was protesting the Shehbaz Sharif administration.
At least four leaders from Imran Khan’s party were hurt, and one of them, MP Faisal Javed Khan, claimed that a follower had been “martyred.”
Imran Khan was transported 100 kilometres away to the Shaukat Khanam Hospital in Lahore, which he had had built in honour of his mother in the 1990s.
Only seven months had passed since the attack in the Gujranwala area, 200 kilometres from Islamabad, took place before Imran Khan’s government collapsed due to a loss of confidence from the defence establishment. Since then, he has been advocating against “intervention” by the army and intelligence agency ISI that “has weakened democracy by imposing a puppet administration.”
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