Former Pakistan PM Imran Khan on Sunday announced that his party will resume the march to Islamabad from the same spot where he sustained bullet injuries during a rally in Punjab province, days after surviving an assassination attempt, for which he has blamed Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and two others.
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The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chief (PTI) who underwent surgery for bullet injuries on Thursday addressed a press conference from the Shaukat Khanum Hospital owned by his charitable organisation.
“We have decided that our march will resume on Tuesday from the same [point] in Wazirabad where I and 11 others were shot, and where Moazzam was martyred,” Mr. Khan said at a press conference from his hospital here.
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Mr. Khan, 70, suffered a bullet injury in the right leg when two gunmen fired a volley of bullets at him and others mounting on a container-mounted truck in the Wazirabad area, where he was leading the march.
PTI worker Moazzam Gondal died due to bullet injuries during the attack on Mr. Khan. The rally was suspended after the attack.
“I will address the march from here (in Lahore), and our march, within the next 10 to 14 days, depending on the speed, will reach Rawalpindi,” Mr. Khan said.
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The PTI chief said once the march reaches Rawalpindi, he would then join it and lead it himself.
Earlier in the day, Pakistan’s former interior minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said the protest march led by PTI has only been temporarily halted and not called off.
The Awami Muslim League (AML) president also lamented the fact that a first information report (FIR) of the attack on Mr. Khan had not been registered despite the passage of three days.
AML was part of the Imran Khan-led PTI government.
Addressing a press conference in Lahore on Saturday, Prime Minister Shehbaz had said that Khan’s party PTI is in power in the Punjab province and the provincial government should tell why the FIR of the assassination attempt has not been registered so far.