Imran Khan to resume early elections push after being shot
Pakistan’s former premier Imran Khan will this week call on his supporters to resume a march to Islamabad and continue pushing for early elections, following an “assassination attempt” on him last week.
He will address his supporters virtually on Tuesday.
Their march will restart from the spot where he was shot last Thursday, according to Fawad Chaudhry, a leader in his Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI).
Khan has since been discharged from a hospital where he was treated for a leg wound sustained in the shooting at a public rally.
The former cricket star will join his supporters in the march two weeks later as they get closer to the capital.
He will continue to recuperate at his residence in Lahore, the capital of the most populous province of Punjab.
Khan has described the shooting as an “assassination attempt” and blamed Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah, and a general in the country’s powerful spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, for being behind the attack.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court’s Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial ordered the police to register a complaint and begin investigating the incident within the next 24 hours as a necessary legal requirement, according to Khan’s lawyer Salman Akram Raja.
Sharif has denied Khan’s allegations and offered to resign if any evidence implicated him in the attack.
He has also asked the country’s Chief Justice to investigate.
The army has also denied any involvement and threatened legal action against Khan for defamation and false accusations.
Khan has been pressuring Sharif’s government for an early election since he was ousted from office in April.