From Imran Khan to Benazir Bhutto: List of Pakistani Political Leaders Who Were Attacked by Assailants
Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan was on Thursday shot at a political rally by a gunman but the cricketer-turned-politician’s condition is said to be stable, Punjab Health Minister Yasmin Rashid confirmed to CNN-News18. The incident took place near Allahwala Chowk of Wazirabad town of Punjab when Khan was leading the protest march.
“Imran Khan took bullets in both legs. He is out of danger and stable,” said Rashid.
TV footage showed that 70-year-old Khan was hit in both legs when the gunman fired on the container-mounted truck carrying the former prime minister from a close range. The attacker was arrested and identified as Naveed Mohammad Basheer, a resident of Sodhra in the Wazirabad district. He was held with a 9mm pistol and two empty magazines.
Here’s a list of many Pakistani politicians who were attacked during political rallies over the past decades:
1. Liaquat Ali Khan
On October 16, 1951, Pakistan’s first prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan was shot dead in Rawalpindi while he was addressing a gathering. The police immediately shot the presumed murderer who was later identified as professional assassin Said Akbar, who was an Afghan national. He was known to Pakistani police prior to the assassination of Liaquat Ali Khan. The exact motive behind the assassination has never been fully revealed and much speculation surrounds it.
Upon his death, Khan was given the honorific title of “Shaheed-e-Millat”, or “Martyr of the Nation”.
2. Khan Abdul Jabbar Khan
He was assassinated by Atta Mohammad on 9 May 1958. The incident took place when Khan was sitting in the garden of his son Sadullah Khan’s house in Lahore. The assailant was a disgruntled Mianwali-based Land Revenue clerk who had been dismissed from service two years previously. He was waiting for Colonel Syed Abid Hussein of Jhang (father of known politician Syeda Abida Hussain) to accompany him to a meeting organised in connection with the scheduled February 1959 general elections.
3. Mir Murtaza Bhutto
Former premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s elder son, Mir Murtaza Bhutto, was killed in Karachi on September 20, 1996. Bhutto, along with six other party activists, was killed in an encounter with police.
4. General Pervez Musharraf
In 2003, Musharraf had survived an assassination attempt when a bomb exploded minutes after his highly-guarded convoy crossed a bridge in Rawalpindi. He was saved by a jamming device in his limousine that prevented the remote controlled explosives from blowing up the bridge.
Another attempt was made in the same year on December 25 in which Musharraf miraculously survived.
In 2007, he had escaped yet another assassination attempt when more than 30 rounds fired at his aircraft from a submachine gun at Rawalpindi.
5. Benazir Bhutto
On December 27, 2007, Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in a shooting and suicide bombing at Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi. Bhutto, twice PM of Pakistan and then-leader of the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party, had been campaigning ahead of elections scheduled for January 2008. Shots were fired at her after a political rally at Liaqat National Bagh, and a suicide bomb was detonated immediately following the shooting. She was declared dead at Rawalpindi General Hospital. Twenty-three other people were killed by the bombing. She had previously survived a similar attempt on her life that killed more than 150 people.
6. Ahsan Iqbal
On May 6, 2018, the then Pakistani interior minister Ahsan Iqbal was wounded in an apparent assassination attempt by a gunman allegedly linked to Tehreek-e-Labaik, ahead of elections in the country. Iqbal, a senior member of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party and a staunch ally of Nawaz Sharif, was shot as he was leaving a constituency meeting surrounded by supporters in Punjab province. Iqbal was shot soon after addressing voters in Kanjroor village in Narowal near the border with India.
The gunman was arrested and “showed his affiliation” to Tehreek-e-Labaik. However, Labaik leader Khadim Hussain Rizvi had said the party had not authorised any of its supporters to take up arms.
Police said the bullet had hit Iqbal in the right arm and gone into his groin. They named the suspected shooter as Abid Hussain, 21, and said they had found him carrying a pistol.
After being rushed to a nearby hospital, Iqbal was taken by helicopter to Lahore, capital of Punjab.
7. Nawabzada Siraj Raisani
On July 16, 2018, Nawabzada Siraj Raisani, who was campaigning for an assembly seat in the southern province of Balochistan, was killed in the bomb blast along with several others. ISIS had claimed responsibility for the attack. The Balochistan government had ordered that the national flag fly at half-staff.
8. Akram Khan Durrani
In 2018, another strike had targeted the convoy of former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister Akram Khan Durrani in Bannu while he was travelling from from one political rally to the other. Duranni survived.
In this bombing incident, four people had lost their lives and 32 others were injured, which took place in North Waziristan, close to the border with Afghanistan.
9. Khawaja Izharul Hassan
In 2017, unknown gunmen opened fired at Muttahida Qaumi Movement leader Khawaja Izharul Hassan in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi and killed a 10-year-old boy and a guard and wounded four others. The attack had took place in the central Buffer Zone district when Hassan was hugging people after an Eid al-Adha prayer gathering but he was unharmed, senior police official Zulfiqar Larak had told AFP.
One of the gunmen was also killed when Hassan’s second guard, who was also wounded in the attack, fired back. He had said that the attackers came in police uniforms so they were able to pass through various check points unhindered.
10. Maulana Samiul Haq
On 2 November 2018, Sami-ul-Haq was assassinated at at his residence in Bahria town in Rawalpindi. He was stabbed multiple times and then was taken to the nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival. According to his guard, he had intended to join the protests against the acquittal of Asia Bibi in Islamabad, but he could not join it due to road blockage.
It is also to be noted here that there are many more Pakistani prime ministers, presidents, governors, chief ministers, sitting and former ministers and eminent front-line politicians who have been attacked by assailants in Pakistan since the country’s inception in 1947.
