MONITORING (SW) – Pakistan’s former prime minister and cricketing great Imran Khan has been shot in the leg in an apparent assassination attempt as his protest convoy was travelling through the country’s east.
Mr Khan was wounded when shots were fired from the crowd near the city of Gujranwala, his senior aide, Raoof Hasan, told Agence France Presse.
“This was an attempt to kill him, to assassinate him,” Hasan said, adding that one alleged attacker had been shot dead and a second taken into police custody.
Several local news outlets are reporting there were multiple gunmen involved.
According to his political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Mr Khan was “lightly wounded” in the Thursday attack.
“He is being taken to a hospital in Lahore, but he is not seriously wounded,” his aide Asad Umar told reporters.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf spokesman Fawad Chaudhry said a bullet hit Mr Khan’s shin.
“Imran Khan and [party colleague] Faisal Javed received bullets wounds… Both have been taken to hospital for treatment,” Chaudhry told Reuters.
Mr Javed, who had blood stains on his clothes, told Geo TV from the hospital “several of our colleagues are wounded. We heard that one of them is dead”.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has ordered the Interior Minister to investigate.
A man was arrested at the scene but no group has claimed responsibility for the shooting.
Mr Khan was leading a protest march to Islamabad to demand snap elections.
Since losing a no-confidence vote in parliament in April, he has alleged it was a conspiracy engineered by his successor, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, and the United States — claims that both the new premier and Washington have denied.
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