Imran Khan to resume early elections push after being shot

Pakistan’s former premier Imran Khan will call on his supporters to resume a march to Islamabad and continue pushing for early elections after being released from a hospital for treatment of a leg wound sustained in a shooting at a public rally.

Khan will address his supporters virtually on Wednesday, and their march will restart from the spot where he was shot at on Thursday, according to Fawad Chaudhry, a leader in his Tehreek-e-Insaf party. The former cricket star will join them 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. The protest rally will resume on Wednesday instead of Tuesday as earlier planned, said Chaudhry in a Twitter post without giving details.

—Bloomberg