Pakistan’s ousted Prime Minister, Imran Khan, has survived a gun attack on his convoy while holding a protest march in the eastern city of Wazirabad.<\/p>\n
He was injured in the leg and four other people were also hurt when a burst of gunfire hit their platform, a container towed by a lorry.<\/p>\n
There was no immediate official comment on the motive for the attack which allies say was an assassination bid.<\/p>\n
The protest march had been called to demand early elections.<\/p>\n
Mr Khan, 70, was leading the march, which was meant to end in the capital Islamabad.<\/p>\n
The former prime minister was seen being taken to a hospital in Lahore. A party spokesman said he had been hit in the shin.<\/p>\n
An official from his PTI party, provincial health minister Yasmeen Rashid, said Mr Khan was in a stable condition.<\/p>\n
Police released a video confession of a man they arrested who they say had attempted to kill the former prime minister.<\/p>\n
It is unclear under what conditions the interview was carried out but in it the man is asked by police why he opened fire, and replies: “He was misguiding the people. I wanted to kill him. I tried to kill him.”<\/p>\n
Video footage from the scene shows Mr Khan and his supporters riding on top of the shipping container before a burst of gunfire is heard. Mr Khan is then seen ducking, as those around him try to cover him.<\/p>\n
Another video shows a conscious Mr Khan with a bandage on his right leg being taken away in a vehicle after the shooting.<\/p>\n
A PTI member is also seen with a bandage on his face and blood on his clothing, saying that people should pray for Mr Khan and all those injured.<\/p>\n
“This was an attempt to kill him, to assassinate him,” Mr Khan’s senior aide Raoof Hasan told AFP news agency.<\/p>\n
Current Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the shooting and ordered an immediate investigation. President Arif Alvi said the incident was a “heinous assassination attempt”.<\/p>\n
Mr Khan has been leading a protest march – the second such rally this year – for the past seven days, calling for new elections.<\/p>\n
The government has repeatedly said it will hold elections next year, as planned.<\/p>\n
Last month, Pakistan’s election commission disqualified Mr Khan from holding public office in a case described by the former star cricketer as politically motivated.<\/p>\n
He had been accused of incorrectly declaring details of gifts from foreign dignitaries and proceeds from their alleged sale. The gifts included Rolex watches, a ring and a pair of cuff links.<\/p>\n
Pakistan has a long history of deadly political violence.<\/p>\n
In the most high-profile case, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated at a public rally in 2007.<\/p>\n
\u25aa\ufe0e By bbc.com<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Imran Khan: Pakistan ex-prime minister wounded at protest march Pakistan’s ousted Prime Minister, Imran Khan, has survived a gun attack on his convoy while holding a protest march in the eastern city of Wazirabad. He was injured in the leg and four other people were also hurt when a burst of gunfire hit their platform, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":60449,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5787],"tags":[3664,4685,1857],"class_list":["post-60448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-assassination","tag-khan","tag-pakistan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60448\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}