Three more suspects have been arrested in a case related to a failed assassination attempt on Pakistan’s ousted prime minister Imran Khan during his party’s rally last year, police said on Monday.
“Two PML-N activists — Mudassar Nazir and Ahsan Ali — have been arrested from Gujranwala division for their social media posts,” police said.
Another suspect, Tayyab Butt, was taken into custody for his alleged involvement in helping the main suspect, Muhammad Naveed, in acquiring the weapon used in the attack, they said.
Mr Khan, the chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, suffered bullet injuries in the right leg on November 3 when gunmen fired a volley of bullets at him and others standing on a container-mounted truck in the Wazirabad area (some 150-km from Lahore), where he was leading the long march to press for snap polls.
Police earlier arrested prime suspect Muhammad Naveed who opened fire on Mr Khan along with his cousin Waqas. Naveed is on judicial remand while Waqas is in JIT’s custody on physical remand.
The three new arrested suspects were presented before an anti-terrorism court that granted them into the custody of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) for a three-day physical remand.
Imran Khan recently alleged that the JIT members are being pressured to distance themselves from the findings of its investigating assassination plot against him. “The powerful quarters were behind the assassination attempt on me,” Mr Khan reiterated.
His party has claimed that ‘three shooters’ were sent to kill Imran Khan.
It said police arrested one shooter and are still looking for the ‘two others’.
According to a forensic laboratory, Mr Khan was hit by three bullets from the gun of Naveed.
Mr Khan, 70, had blamed Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah and Major General Faisal Naseer of ISI for hatching a plot to assassinate him.
The Punjab police had registered the FIR in connection with the assassination attempt on Khan but didn’t mention the ‘high profile suspects including ISI’s top man Khan held responsible for the attack.
Imran Khan had dismissed the FIR, saying without the mention of Sharif, Sanaullah and Faisal it is a mere “piece of trash”.