Chaotic scenes broke out near Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)’s reception camp at Allahwala Chowk in Gujranwala after gunshots were fired at party chief Imran Khan, media reports said.
According to PTI leader Imran Ismail, Khan has been shot in the leg “three to four” times, Dawn reported.
Speaking to Bol TV, Ismail said that he was standing next to Khan when the shots were fired in which PTI leader Faisal Javed was also injured.
He added that the attacker was directly in front of the container and was wielding an AK-47, Dawn reported.
The former Pakistan cricket captain was taken from the rally site just outside the town of Gujranwala to receive treatment in Lahore, around a two-and-a-half-hour drive away. He is currently out of danger and in a stable condition, Umar added.
A man suspected of firing shots at the rally was detained on Thursday, said police, which added that the male suspect was arrested with a 9mm pistol and two empty magazines.
At least one person was killed in the incident, according to Faisal Javed, a senior PTI politician and close Khan ally who received a wound to the head in the attack. The victim’s name has not been released.
In a video statement Javed, who can be seen sitting up while receiving treatment, said: “Please pray for us, for Imran Khan, pray for our fellow workers who are severely injured and pray for our party member who has died and is martyred.”
Khan was on the seventh day of a nationwide rally tour calling for elections to be brought forward from August next year.
Protests broke out across Pakistan in support of Khan, including in the capital Islamabad as well as in Peshawar, where approximately 800 protesters gathered, blocking roads for around two hours while holding party flags and chanting slogans against the army and the federal government.
Khan alleged that Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah and a senior intelligence official, Maj. Gen. Faisal Naseer, were behind Thursday’s attack.
Khan made the accusations in a statement shared by PTI senior leader Umar, who said he recently spoke to Khan.
“I was getting information that this was going to happen from beforehand,” Khan said, according to Umar. “These men need to be removed from their posts, if they are not removed then there will be protests.”
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the firing incident in Gujranwala and directed Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah to seek an immediate report from the inspector-general of police and chief secretary of Punjab.
This is not the first time that Pakistani politicians have been attacked.
Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on December 27, 2007, and then Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani survived an assassination attempt in 2008.
On Thursday, the US condemned the attack on the former prime minister. “The United States strongly condemns the attack on Imran Khan and his supporters and hopes for the swift recovery of all who were injured. Violence has no place in politics,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to New Mexico.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the attack on Khan and his supporters was “completely unacceptable”.
“I strongly condemn this violence,” he said on Twitter. “It has no place in politics, in any democracy, or in our society.
“I’m wishing a speedy recovery to Imran and all who were injured today.”
Khan’s ex wife Jemima Goldsmith has expressed relief at the news that Khan survived a shooting incident and extended her family’s gratitude to the man who tackled the attacker, potentially saving the former prime minister’s life.
“The news we dread … Thank God he’s okay,” Goldsmith, who lives in the UK, wrote on Twitter. “And thank you from his sons to the heroic man in the crowd who tackled the gunman.”
