Imran Khan, the former Pakistan cricket captain and a leading candidate in the country’s general election, was rushed to hospital with a skull fracture and injured back on Tuesday after falling off a hydraulic lift at one of the final rallies of his campaign.
Television pictures showed Khan, 60, the leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI), who was campaigning in Lahore ahead of Saturday’s election, being pulled off an overcrowded platform and falling around four metres to the ground after one of his guards lost balance and toppled over the side.
Imran Khan had squeezed on to the small lift carrying him and five other members of his staff up to a stage, when another man tried to clamber aboard.
Although Khan, who has only won one seat in past elections, is not expected to win, he has been gaining momentum in recent days.
A frantic schedule of back-to-back campaign events has helped to galvanise a young, middle-class fan base with huge numbers of supporters flocking to his events.
The PTI reassured supporters that Khan had not suffered serious injuries. “Imran Khan is up, he is talking to people around him, and he recognised everyone,” a statement said. “However, he is still undergoing tests so please pray for him.”
The incident, footage of which was looped continuously by television channels, came at the end of another bloody day in Pakistan’s election which saw 17 people killed by bomb attacks in the north-west. Twelve people were killed and more than 40 injured by a suicide bomb attack on a Pakistan People’s party (PPP) candidate in the north-western province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Later a roadside bomb killed another five people, including the brother of a PPP candidate standing for the provincial assembly.
More than 100 people have been killed by the Taliban’s campaign of violence, largely directed against candidates standing for secular parties that back army operations against the militants.
Khan’s events have been energetic but chaotic at times with security guards powerless to prevent him throwing himself into heaving crowds despite the terrorist attacks that have cast a shadow over the election.
In 2007 the former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was killed after she was attacked by militants. The incident helped her party, the PPP, ride to power on a wave of sympathy.
Nawaz Sharif, the leader of his own faction of the Pakistan Muslim League and favourite to win the most seats on Saturday, reacted to Khan’s injury by cancelling his campaign events on Tuesday night and Wednesday .
Khan was taken away by ambulance and later moved to the Shaukat Khanum hospital, a private cancer hospital he set up in honour of his mother.
Supporters outside the building cheered and waved cricket bats – the official symbol used to identify the party on ballot papers – when news spread that a CT scan had shown Khan had no internal bleeding in the head. Khan has a huge following on social media websites and concerned supporters flocked to Twitter and Facebook to express their concern.
Others took the accident as a good sign, citing the example of the 1992 cricket World Cup which Khan led to victory despite suffering acute pain in his shoulder.
“Imran Khan won 92 World Cup with a shoulder injury, this time he’ll win Elections2013 with a head injury,” said one Facebook commenter.
video: Imran Khan falls from stage at election rally in Lahore:
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