Pakistan's ousted prime minister Imran Khan on Thursday dismissed the claim made by the government that his life is under threat from "foreign agencies", and instead said he has identified a total of six persons within the country, including three fresh ones, who plotted to kill him.
Referring to a new video that he claims his team has sent to his associates abroad, Imran Khan, 70, said that its content talks about the people who want to kill him and would be out in public in case he is assassinated.
"Among the six, three are those whom I had named in the FIR after an assassination attempt on my life in Punjab in November last year," Imran Khan said in a series of tweets on Thursday.
After a gun attack on his rally in the Wazirabad area, some 150 kms from Lahore, in which he suffered bullet injuries to his leg, Mr Khan blamed Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah and ISI's top officer Major General Faisal Naseer for hatching a plot to assassinate him.
"Interior minister (Sanaullah) says my life is under threat from foreign agencies. Let me make it clear to the entire country that the only threat to my life is from the 3 people I named after Wazirabad assassination attempt. Same 3, 3 more I have identified in a video statement, tried to eliminate me on March 18 in ICT Judicial Complex," Khan said.
Imran Khan has not identified the three additional persons named by him.
On March 18, clashes erupted between security forces and supporters of Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party outside the judicial complex in Islamabad ahead of his appearance before a court in connection with a corruption case.
In his tweets, Mr Khan categorically said that if he is assassinated, the ones to be blamed would be the ones named in the video.
"If any attempt is made now on my life, these same people will be responsible. Just as they tried to pin the blame for the Wazirabad attack on a religious extremist - a mere smokescreen - they are now trying to create another deception of foreign agencies," he said.
"I want to make it crystal clear to the nation that the only people responsible for any attempt on my life will be the people I have identified. They are petrified I will be elected back to power & hold them accountable, hence their efforts to assassinate me," he said.
Imran Khan's PTI is pressing for early general polls, but the government led by Prime Minister Sharif maintains its stance on simultaneous elections across the country.
Prime Minister Sharif on Wednesday said elections were an issue that needed to be decided in Parliament and added that the appropriate time to conduct them was either in October or November.
The current National Assembly will complete its term on August 13, and elections are expected to be held after that.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
