Pakistan’s former PM Imran Khan has been shot and wounded during his party’s long march in the city of Wazirabad, Punjab province, Pakistan. Khan has been at loggerheads with the Pakistani establishment, including the Army, ever since his govt was dismissed after losing a no-confidence vote in April.
PTI has called it an apparent assassination attempt. As per a local report, one person was killed, and seven were injured including PTI senator Faisal Javed Khan. Two suspects have reportedly been arrested.
Injured in the assassination attempt on Imran Khan, Senator @FaisalJavedKhan speaks exclusively. #عمران_خان_ہماری_ریڈ_لائن_ہے pic.twitter.com/PyrgQoeTs7
— PTI (@PTIofficial) November 3, 2022
The shooting took place when PTI’s long march container-caravan reached Allah Wala Chowk in Wazirabad in the afternoon. The firing triggered panic and a stampede, in which more people are feared to have been injured.
Khan has been demanding snap elections, and he and other PTI leaders have openly spoken against the Pakistan Army, which is widely believed to be an extra-Constitutional authority manipulating Pakistan’s troubled democracy from the time the country was founded.
The ISI chief and a senior Army general had held an unprecedented press conference a few days back to counter some of the charges that Imran and PTI have made against the military establishment.
Pakistan has been ruled by military dictators for 33 years since its formation in 1947. Former PM Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who had threatened to wage a 1000 year war with Bharat, was deposed by Gen. Zia-ul-Haq and hanged to death in 1979. His daughter and former PM Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in 2007 during a political rally ahead of elections announced by outgoing dictator Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
