PTI
Islamabad/Lahore, November 4
Angry supporters of Imran Khan took to the streets across Pakistan after Friday prayers to protest against the assassination bid on the ousted premier who, in a dramatic address to the nation from his Shaukat Khanum Hospital in Lahore, vowed to resume his march to Islamabad demanding fresh general election.
As soon as I get well, I have decided to take to the streets and will give a call for Islamabad march. Imran Khan in a video from Lahore hospital
As Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) insisted Thursday’s attack was a “prelude to a well-thought-out conspiracy” to assassinate their leader, the federal government asked the PTI-led Punjab provincial government to constitute a high-level joint investigation team to bring facts to light.
Khan, 70, suffered bullet injuries in the right leg when two gunmen fired at him in the Wazirabad area of Punjab province, where he was leading a protest march against the government of PM Shehbaz Sharif. Addressing the nation for the first time from his hospital in Lahore where he is being treated, Khan, whose right leg was plastered, vowed to take to the streets once he had recovered.
“As soon as I get well, I have decided to take to the streets and will give the call for Islamabad,” he said in his an hour and 45 minutes speech, during which he attacked the Sharif government. Khan said he was hit by four bullets.
Dr Faisal Sultan, who is treating the cricketer-turned-politician, said X-rays of Khan’s right leg showed that his tibia was damaged and fractured. Describing the attack on his life, Khan said he was on the container when a “burst of bullets” was directed at him. Hit in the leg, he fell down. “Then a second burst comes, there were two people,” he recalled, adding that had the the two bullet sprays been synchronised, he would not have survived. “Because I fell, I think he (shooter) thought I had died and fled,” he said. On the alleged suspect who had been arrested, he claimed: “He is not an extremist. There was a plan behind the attempt and we will uncover it.”
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