India Says ‘Closely Keeping An Eye’ After Imran Khan Shot In Wazirabad
Minutes after Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan was shot during a rally, India said it is keeping a close eye on the situation. Khan’s leg was injured on Thursday when his anti-government protest convoy came under attack in Wazirabad.
Addressing a press briefing, MEA Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said, “It’s a development that just took place. We’re closely keeping an eye on and we’ll continue to monitor ongoing developments.”
Several people part of the convoy were reportedly injured and the information minister said a suspect had been arrested. Imran Khan’s aides have alleged that it was a clear assassination attempt.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) spokesperson Fawad Chaudhry said there was a lot of bleeding, but Khan was stable. “If the shooter had not been stopped by people there, the entire PTI leadership would have been wiped out,” Reuters quoted Chaudhry as saying.
Khan was taken to a hospital in Lahore after the attack in Wazirabad, nearly 200 km (120 miles) from the capital, Islamabad.
Pakistan has a long history of political violence. Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December 2007 in a gun and bomb attack after holding an election rally in the city of Rawalpindi. In the same city, her father and former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged in 1979 after being deposed by a military coup.
Former cricketer Khan, 70, was leading a protest march on Islamabad to demand snap elections. There were hundreds of people in the convoy. Party colleague Faisal Javed, who was also wounded and 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.”
(With inputs from Reuters)
