• Hammad Azhar says Imran Khan will be back in action in 2 to 3 days.
• PTI will meet to discuss issues including the attacker’s statement. 
• Says the peaceful protest will continue. 

PTI leader Hammad Azhar has said that PTI Chairman Imran Khan will return to the political arena within two to three days.

Imran Khan was injured in a gun assault on Thursday when the PTI chief, standing atop his container with other PTI leaders, was leading the anti-government long march toward Islamabad. He received gunshot injuries to his leg. 

Talking to the media at the Shaukat Khanum Hospital in Lahore, the PTI leader said the party would continue its peaceful protest against the attempted assassination of Imran Khan.

The attacker on the PTI chief was “a religious fanatic engineered at a studio,” he emphasised, adding that the PTI leaders are going to meet in this regard and will brief the media afterwards.

Hammad Azhar said a total of Rs15 million will be given to the family of Moazzam Gondal, the youth who lost his life during the gun attack on Imran Khan on November 3 in Wazirabad.

He said he would take the bereaved family of Moazzam to meet Imran Khan at the Shaukat Khanum Hospital. Hammad Azhar said that the PTI has given Rs5 million to the children of Moazzam and the Punjab government also will give another Rs5 million to the bereaved family in a day or two.

The PTI will bear all the expenses of Moazzam’s children, he asserted.

Govt set to take action against Imran

Meantime, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif directed the concerned authorities to take action against Imran Khan and his aides for levelling allegations against the armed forces.

He took the decision during a meeting in Punjab’s capital, a statement issued in this regard said.

“The federal government has decided to exercise its powers on baseless allegations against institutions. Legal action will be taken against Imran Khan and his associates in light of ISPR’s (Inter-Services Public Relations) statement,” it said.

The government has also constituted a committee consisting of constitutional and legal experts to formulate a strategy. 

Imran says knew murder plot

In a televised address from the hospital, Khan told his followers that he had already learned about the looming danger and had received information that there was a plan in place to kill him “somewhere between Wazirabad and Gujrat”.

Khan was shot in the leg on Thursday as he waved to crowds from a container mounted on a truck from where he was leading a protest march on the capital to press for early elections and calling for the resignation of PM Shehbaz Sharif.

Khan told reporters that PM Shehbaz — who replaced him as premier following a vote of no confidence in April — masterminded the attack along with Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah and a senior army commander.

“Three people — including Rana Sanaullah, Shehbaz Sharif, and a major in the army — made a plan to assassinate me after they saw that the number of people in my long march was exponentially increasing,” Khan asserted.