My cameraman Duncan Sharp and I were sitting inside the container Imran Khan was on top of when we suddenly heard screams.
There was a lot of commotion and some of Khan’s senior team came rushing down a narrow spiral staircase looking stunned. It was very unclear what had happened, but there was sheer terror in people’s eyes.
Then a tall man, I’d seen on the container, came down with a very bloodied foot.
The music that had been blaring out of the speakers fell silent. We could hear a woman’s screams from upstairs. Then suddenly, more of Khan’s senior team emerged.
They were telling us to get off the container immediately. There was concern the shooter was still on board. But at that stage, it was so unclear if there were threats outside. We didn’t hear any gunfire.
At that stage, it was not known if people had been stabbed or shot.
The door flew open and we were faced with a panicked-looking crowd.
Some were shouting, “Imran Khan is dead”.
Others were asking, “Is he dead, is he dead?”
Armed police started running towards us. Ambulances were screeching into the area. I saw one bloodied man carried into the ambulance and then another. I did not hear gunfire, but the music was so loud it may have been hard to.
As we walked to try and shelter ourselves, I saw a doctor. He told me he’d treated two of the wounded.
One said he had been wounded in the hip, but both were in stable condition.
Image: The scene of the assassination attempt
As I emerged from the hospital, one of Khan’s senior team tried to usher us into a car.
He said Imran Khan had been taken to hospital and had been shot in the left leg. We understand he is being treated in Lahore.
Faisal Javed, the leader of the Mr Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, was also among the injured. We saw his bloodied face on video – a video shared with us by the PTI.
In it he says: “I have been informed that Imran Khan and another party worker were injured and one party member has died. I am praying for all the injured, especially Imran Khan.”
Image: Aftermath of ‘attempted assassination’ of Imran Khan
Two hours before Imran Khan had sat down for a lengthy interview with me and insisted he was hopeful there would not be violence on his Long March which began six days ago in Lahore, a week-long march through Pakistan’s largest province, Punjab, to the capital Islamabad.
He told me “the genie was out of the bottle,” and that people wanted dramatic change in the country; that they were sick of the financial instability and corruption in Pakistan and that he was confident he could put enough pressure on the government through this march to bring an early election.
Sadly, moments later, he was directly in the eye of the storm. Facing the very violence he had hoped to avoid.
