LONDON: Former special assistant to the prime minister (SAPM) Mirza Shahzad Akbar was attacked in the United Kingdom, where he has been living in self-imposed exile since April 2022, leaving him \u201cbruised and fractured\u201d, it emerged on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been attacked and been in the hospital and with the police. Bruised and fractured [sic],\u201d the ex-SAPM said in text messages after Dawn reached out to him, seeking confirmation of a post about the incident on PTI\u2019s X account.<\/p>\n
The PTI\u2019s post at 9:50pm PKT on Wednesday said Akbar was attacked at his house in Cambridge in the morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe attacker punched him repeatedly in the face, as a result of which his nose and jaw were fractured,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLocal police have collected all details, and an investigation is underway,\u201d the party said.<\/p>\n
Akbar, who was the accountability adviser in the PTI government, was previously also attacked in November 2023 at his home in Hertfordshire.<\/p>\n
The attacker, a masked individual, had thrown acidic liquid at Akbar, the former SAPM had shared in a post on X, adding that, \u201cI will not be intimidated nor bow down to those who are doing this\u201d.<\/p>\n
Akbar had linked the attack to the Al Qadir Trust case against PTI founder Imran Khan, alleging that security agencies were harassing him to give evidence against the ex-premier.<\/p>\n
Separately, he had told Dawn, \u201cI have been sent messages in recent months by people who are clearly not happy with me. I\u2019ve been told to mend my ways or else\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Akbar had initiated legal action against the government of Pakistan in a UK court in April 2024 over the acid attack. He told Dawn that he had also sent notices to the Pakistan High Commission in UK and other Pakistani officials.<\/p>\n
However, in May 2024, the Foreign Office had \u201ccategorically rejected\u201d what it said were \u201cpreposterous\u201d claims by Akbar about the alleged involvement of state officials in the 2023 acid attack on him.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Akbar has been declared a proclaimed offender by an Islamabad court in a case pertaining to alleged controversial statements made on X. Subsequently, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi met United Kingdom High Commissioner Jane Marriott, handing over extradition papers for Akbar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON: Former special assistant to the prime minister (SAPM) Mirza Shahzad Akbar was attacked in the United Kingdom, where he has been living in self-imposed exile since April 2022, leaving him \u201cbruised and fractured\u201d, it emerged on Thursday. \u201cI have been attacked and been in the hospital and with the police. Bruised and fractured [sic],\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14494,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14493"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14495,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14493\/revisions\/14495"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}