Pakistan In Turmoil After Ex-PM Is Shot

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

ISLAMABAD (Worthy News) – Pakistan plunged into political and social turmoil Thursday after ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan survived a gun attack on his convoy.

The attack, in which several others were also injured, happened while he led a protest march in the eastern city of Wazirabad.

Khan was injured in the leg, and four other people were hurt when a burst of gunfire hit their platform, a container towed by a lorry, footage showed.

There was no immediate official comment on the motive for the attack, which allies say was an assassination bid.

Thursday’s protest march had been called to demand early elections. The attack underscored broader concerns about the political instability in the Islamic nation, where minority Christians have reported massive persecution by extremists and authorities.

The 70-year-old Khan was seen being rushed to a hospital in Lahore, Pakistan’s second-largest city, where he would be treated after being hit in the shin, a party spokesperson said.

This was an attempt to kill him, to assassinate him,” Khan’s senior aide Raoof Hasan said in published remarks.

PRESSURE ON GOVERNMENT

The turmoil comes amid calls by Khan and others on the government to organize early elections.

Pakistan’s leadership faces pressure in a nation facing economic and social challenges in the aftermath of massive flooding that killed more than 1,700 people.

The severe flooding, described as the worst in Pakistan’s recent history, destroyed and damaged hundreds of thousands of homes and left almost 10 million children needing immediate lifesaving support, said the United Nation’s children agency UNICEF.

But Khan may be unable to tackle these problems as a government leader due to alleged financial wrongdoing.

Last month, Pakistan’s election commission disqualified him from holding public office over corruption allegations in a case described by the former star cricketer “as politically motivated.”

He had been accused of incorrectly declaring details of gifts from foreign dignitaries and proceeds from their reported sale.

The gifts included Rolex watches, a ring, and a pair of cuff links. Pakistan has a long history of deadly political violence.

HIGH-PROFILE CASES

In the most high-profile case, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated at a public rally in 2007.

Other killings include the killing of Pakistani Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti, the cabinet’s only Christian minister at the time. He was shot dead in March 2011 by gunmen who ambushed his car in broad daylight in Islamabad, the capital.

Bhakti had received death threats for urging reform to the nation’s controversial blasphemy laws.

Months earlier, in January 2011, Pakistan’s Punjab province Governor Salman Taseer, who also opposed the law, was shot dead by one of his bodyguards.

The blasphemy law has often been misused to target Christians, and others deemed not following Islamic requirements, human rights watchers say.

Scores of people, many of them Christians, have been killed by extremists or jailed in recent years on what observers view as trumped-up charges of blasphemy.

So far, governments have failed to change the blasphemy legislation despite international appeals.

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