It was the moment Imran Khan had been building up to for weeks. Last Saturday, Pakistan's former prime minister made his first public address since being shot in an assassination attempt last month. The shooting was the latest twist in months of political turmoil that began in April when Khan was ousted by a vote of no confidence in parliament.
The rally in Rawalpindi was the climax of a "long march" by Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party to press the government to call a snap election before parliament's term expires in October next year.
"I'm more worried about the freedom of Pakistan than my life," said Khan, who hobbled to the stage to speak to supporters from behind a panel of bulletproof glass. "I will fight for this country until my last drop of blood." Khan said he was calling off his protest march to Islamabad because he feared it would cause havoc.
Khan attracts cultish devotion from supporters but made his speech hundreds of metres from the bulk of the crowd of around 25,000, separated by coils of barbed wire and a buffer of police officers. Mobile phone signals were jammed in the vicinity.
Since he was removed as prime minister in April in a vote of no confidence, his popularity has gone from strength to strength just as Pakistan has spiralled further into a state of political crisis. The former prime minister - known to thrive as an opposition agitator-has mobilised hundreds of thousands of people at his rallies and made speeches filled with incendiary rhetoric.
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