MUBASHIR HASSAN
LAHORE
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan Friday expressed his resolve to
resume the long march
as soon as he recovers
from his leg injuries he
received during a gun
attack on his container on Thursday when
the long march reached
Wazirabad.
“I will again give a call
for Islamabad when I get better”, he said, without offering any evidence in support
of his claims, in a televised address from the Shaukat Khanum Hospital where he is under
treatment for his leg injuries.
Sitting on a wheelchair, the former prime minister also asked
his supporters to continue staging protests across the country
till the resignation of three persons his party had nominated
for their involvement in the firing incident.
Imran said he had prior knowledge of the attack as he had already informed his supporters
about it in his address at a public rally on September 24. “I already knew about a plan to kill
me somewhere between Wazirabad and Gujrat. They (the
government) had plans to lay the
blame on some religious fanatics
as they did in the case of Salman
Taseer [ex-Punjab governor]”, he
maintained, adding that the person who has been arrested is not
a religious fanatic.
Talking about Thursday’s attack, Khan said that they had
earlier projected that Imran
Khan had committed religious
blasphemy. He alleged that three
people including Shehbaz Sharif, Rana Sana Ullah, and another
high profile official had planned
to kill him after they realised
that the number of people in the
long march was increasing.
He reiterated that he had previously nominated four people
who were planning to assassinate him and also made video
mentioning their names. This
video, he said, would be released
if he is killed. He said the video
was lying somewhere outside
the country. Imran said his party was struggling to lodge an FIR
against the three powerful persons, but to no avail. “But, you
know, everybody has fears”, he
observed. He said FIR cannot be
registered unless the three persons [involved in the murder
conspiracy] are removed from
their official positions. “These
three persons will have to relinquish their official positions first
before an FIR is registered”, he
added.
The PTI chief asked the Chief
Justice of Pakistan that there will
be no justice in this case unless
the three nominated persons are
removed from their offices. “Pakistan cannot make progress
and there will be no justice if the
three persons continue to hold
their offices”, he said.
Khan went on to say that the
investigation will not move forward in their presence because
they controlled all the institutions who are supposed to investigate the incident. Giving details of how the firing incident
took place, Khan said that when
he was standing atop the container in Wazirabad, a burst of
bullets was fired at the container
from one side, and he fell.