Former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan was recovering in hospital on Friday after a gunman shot him in the leg, with his supporters vowing the assassination attempt will not derail his "long march" bid to return to power.
The attack on his convoy, apparently by a lone gunman, killed one man and wounded at least 10, significantly raising the stakes in a political crisis that has gripped the South Asian nation since Khan's ousting in April.
Khan "was stable and he was doing fine" at Shaukat Khanum hospital in the eastern city of Lahore, his doctor Faisal Sultan told AFP on Friday.
Seemi Bokhari, a lawmaker with Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, said after visiting Khan the former premier was in high spirits.
"The doctors are allowing him to move ... He is feeling perfectly well and he will soon be discharged," she told AFP.
The 70-year-old former international cricket star had been leading a campaign convoy of thousands since last week from Lahore to the capital Islamabad when he was attacked.
Khan suffered at least one bullet wound to his right leg when a gunmen sprayed pistol fire at his modified container truck as it drove slowly through a thick crowd in Wazirabad, around 170 kilometres east of Islamabad.
"Everyone who was standing in the very front row got hit," former information minister Fawad Chaudhry, who was standing behind Khan, told AFP.
Senior aide Raoof Hasan said it was "an attempt to kill him, to assassinate him."
Chaudhry said party officials would meet later Friday to discuss the immediate fate of Khan's campaign march.
"The real freedom long march will continue and the movement for people's rights will remain until an announcement on the general elections," he tweeted.
Threats
Party officials also called for supporters to stage rallies and marches across the country after Friday afternoon prayers, the most important of the week.
Protesters lit fires and blocked roads in several cities on Thursday as news of Khan's shooting spread.
His campaign truck has become a crime scene for now, cordoned off and guarded by commandos as forensic experts comb the area.
Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb said Thursday the attacker had been taken into custody. Officials shared an apparent confession video that was circulating online.
"I did it because (Khan) was misleading the public," says a dishevelled man in the leaked video, shown with his hands tied behind his back in what appears to be a police station.
He says he was angry with the procession for making a racket during the call to prayer that summons Muslims to the mosque five times a day.
Pervaiz Elahi, the chief minister of Punjab, said officers who leaked the video would be disciplined.
Pakistan has been grappling with Islamist militancy for decades, with right-wing religious groups having huge sway over the population.
It has been no stranger to assassination attempts during decades of political instability, and the powerful military has led the country several times.
Pakistan's first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, was shot dead at a rally in Rawalpindi in 1951. Another former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, was killed in 2007 when a huge bomb detonated near her vehicle as she greeted supporters in the city of Rawalpindi.
