LAHORE/ISLAMABAD: A senior leader of Pakistan’s ruling party called on Friday for an investigation into the release of a confessional video of the suspect behind the attack on ex-premier Imran Khan.
Khan was shot in the leg and injured in an apparent assassination attempt as he waved to crowds from atop a truck-mounted container. He was leading a protest march on Islamabad to pressure the government to announce early elections.
Within an hour of the attack, police released a video statement of the suspect, in which he said that he had acted alone and wanted to kill Khan for “misleading the people.”
Leaders of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf opposition party have questioned the confession, asking why police released the video before an investigation was completed. More than a dozen people were injured in the attack and many eyewitnesses have said that shots were fired from multiple points, raising questions about whether more than one shooter was involved.
“In which police station was the video recorded? What was the need for the video? This, in itself, deserves to be investigated separately,” Mohammad Zubair, spokesperson for Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz supremo Nawaz Sharif, told Arab News in a phone interview.
“I mean, the whole thing is laughable, that his confession was released within half an hour (of the attack) … where does something like this ever happen in the world? The place should have been taken over, the witnesses should have been secured,” Zubair added, raising questions about the ability of the government and investigators in Punjab, where Khan’s PTI party is in power, to preserve the crime scene and evidence.
Responding to PTI’s allegations that Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah and Inter-Services Intelligence director-general for counter-intelligence Maj. Gen. Faisal Naseer were responsible for the attack on Khan, Zubair said that demands that the three officials resign were “premature.”
Zubair’s remarks came as Khan’s supporters began gathering early on Friday at the spot of the apparent assassination attempt and in cities across Pakistan, calling on the former prime minister to restart his march on Islamabad.
At a press conference on Friday afternoon, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah urged Khan and his aides to review and beef up his security.
Addressing the allegations against him, PM Sharif and ISI’s Naseer, Sanaullah described the claims by Khan’s aides as an “incitement to violence” and “extremely regrettable,” warning that the three top officials had been accused “without investigation and without evidence.”
Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said that Khan in his speeches had crossed the “red lines of religion,” which was why he had been targeted.
“The language the former prime minister (Imran Khan) used time and again … he crossed red lines of religion due to which a fanatic attacked,” Asif said on the floor of Pakistan’s Parliament.
“I think the incident that unfolded yesterday, the videos of the accused, show that religious fanaticism is behind this,” he said, referring to confessional statements by the suspect.
He added that those behind the assault must be brought to justice, but that the incident should not be used for political gain.