The man who allegedly shot at and injured Imran Khan Thursday evening has claimed he wanted to kill the ex Pakistan prime minister because he is misleading people. In a video statement circulated online – which Hindustan Times has not been able to independently verify – the alleged shooter also said he wanted to kill only Khan and had acted on his own.
“Sirf Imran Khan ko maarna tha (I came only to kill Imran Khan)… I did this because he is misleading people. I couldn’t accept it…” the (as yet unidentified) man said, adding that he had driven up the site of the rally on a motorcycle that he left at a family member’s home.
It is unclear who recorded the video and who released it online.
Also read | Assassination bid, says Pakistan’s PTI on firing that wounded ex-PM Imran Khan
The former cricketer kicked off a protest march from Lahore to Islamabad last week to demand prime minister Shehbaz Sharif call snap polls. Khan was ousted as PM in April after losing a no-confidence vote that (he claims) was engineered by Sharif and the United States.
Both the PM and the United States have denied the claims.
Imran Khan was shot in his leg and rushed to hospital, and is now in stable condition.
“There was a guy who was in front of the container who had this automatic pistol. He fired a burst. Everyone who was standing in the very front row got hit,” ex minister Fawad Chaudhry, a senior leader of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, told news agency AFP.
Chaudhry was standing behing Khan at the time. Some reports suggest there were two shooters; the other had an automatic rifle and is believed to have been shot dead.
