Imran Khan supporters take to streets as shooting fuels Pakistan tensions

Hundreds of police officers equipped with teargas hurriedly took positions near a junction connecting Islamabad with its twin city of Rawalpindi as a group of protesters burned wood and chanted slogans on Friday.

The two groups edged towards each other, and then the protesters hurled stones at the police, who responded with teargas rounds. Not long afterwards, the protesters dispersed, and police reopened the junction to traffic.

He offered no evidence for his claims and the government has denied any involvement, blaming the assassination attempt on a gunman fuelled by religious extremism. Sharif led a coalition of parties that removed Khan from power through a parliamentary vote in April.

The 70-year-old Khan, a former international cricket star, had been leading a campaign convoy of thousands since last week from Lahore to the capital Islamabad. Khan was looking out at the crowd when bullets were sprayed at his modified container truck as it slowly inched through a thick crowd in Wazirabad, about 105 miles east of Islamabad.

Khan said he was shot four times, twice in each leg. A doctor who was in the room with him said Khan was hit twice in the right thigh and twice in the left thigh, and that his left tibia had been fractured.

Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report