I cannot backtrack from my view on cipher issue: Imran Khan

Says he might be attacked again

LAHORE, Nov 17 (SABAH): Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman and former prime minister Imran Khan, who survived Nov 3 assassination attempt in Wazirabad, feared he could be attacked again in the near future.

The PTI chief was injured during a gun attack while leading the party’s long march in Punjab’s Wazirabad on November 3. A PTI supporter, Moazzam Nawaz, was killed in the incident while 14 others, including the former premier, were wounded.

In an interview with FRANCE 24, Imran Khan said that he was convinced that the recent attack on him was an assassination plot hatched by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah. He claimed that the suspect arrested was merely a decoy and that there was another gunman at the rally in the eastern city of Wazirabad.

Imran Khan said he only trusted the chief justice to conduct an independent investigation, arguing that any other probe would be sabotaged by the interior minister.

The former premier said he feared further attempts on his life but vowed to rejoin the anti-government march. He said he would take more precautions but vowed to carry on regardless of the risks, insisting that the protest march would remain peaceful.

The PTI chief said that the present rulers feel threatened by his party’s popularity in view of the next elections in the country. “They think that the only way to get me out of the way is actually [to] eliminate me. So I think that there is a threat, still.”

Imran Khan, who was ousted as premier in April after losing a no-confidence vote in the Parliament, denied having backtracked on his claim that he was toppled as part of a US conspiracy.

He stressed there was indeed evidence that the US administration wanted to oust him while referring to the matter of cipher. However, Imran Khan said he didn’t want to go against the interests of the people of Pakistan by antagonising a superpower.