ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chairman Imran Khan has said that intelligence agencies had tipped-off him that he could be attacked.
When asked during an interview with American broadcaster CNN that what information he had been given on the attack, Imran Khan said: “Remember, three and a half years I was in power. I have connections with intelligence agencies, the different agencies that operate. How did I get the information? From within the intelligence agencies. Why? Because most people are appalled by what is going on in this country.”
He said that three bullets were taken from his right leg but doctors have left shrapnel inside in his body.
“They took out three bullets from my right leg. The left had some shrapnel which they’ve left inside,” he said from his Zaman Park home in Lahore.
Khan said his bone has been damaged and that his leg is in a cast and that it will take four to six weeks for him to resume normal activity.
The former premier had blamed Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah and a serving military general for the attack on him. However, he evaded to answer what specific evidence he has to put the blame on the three officials only saying he had intelligence reports.
“As the events unfolded, they are in that speech. How this would happen, how in the name of blasphemy a religious fanatic would kill me and they would blame it on him. All this is in my speech which I put on television – it’s on social media,” he said in reference to a speech he made on September 24, in which he said he outlined how the events of the shooting would transpire.
When asked about suggestions from his critics that accusing the current government of perpetrating the attack would help Khan get back into office, he replied that he doesn’t “need any reason to accuse this government for me to get back into power,” adding that his party remains popular since his ousting in April.
“They tried everything to somehow get me out of the way. When that didn’t happen, this was planned,” he added.
Earlier, the Inter-Services Public Relations refuted Khan’s claims, calling them “baseless and irresponsible” and “absolutely unacceptable and uncalled for.”
“Pakistan army prides itself for being an extremely professional and well-disciplined organisation with a robust and highly effective internal accountability system applicable across the board for unlawful acts, if any, committed by uniformed personnel,” the ISPR said in response to charges of Imran Khan.
“However, if the honour, safety and prestige of its rank and file is being tarnished by vested interests through frivolous allegations, the institution will jealously safeguard its officers and soldiers no matter what,” the ISPR said.
Earlier, Imran Khan wrote a letter to President Arif Alvi saying that since his government was removed from power in April, his party had been confronted with “an ever-increasing scale of false allegations, harassment, arrests and custodial torture.”
