Imran Khan in hospital after rally fall

PAKISTAN: Pakistani politician Imran Khan was being treated for a head injury Wednesday after falling at an election rally, the latest dramatic turn in a campaign that has seen more than 100 people killed in attacks.

Television footage showed Khan, leader of the Pakistan Movement for Justice party (PTI), bleeding from the head after tumbling from a makeshift lift transporting him onto a stage in Pakistan's second-largest city of Lahore.

But in a televised statement from his hospital bed shortly after, the former cricketer urged people to vote for his party in Saturday's polls.

“I did whatever I could for this country. Now remember 11th May, come out and vote for PTI without considering its candidates, just vote for PTI,” he said, wearing a neck brace and speaking in a weak voice.

The former cricketer's accident came at the end of a day that saw 18 people killed and dozens wounded in bomb attacks in northwest Pakistan ahead of the general election.

In another attack Wednesday, one woman was killed and 15 people wounded when a suicide bomber crashed his explosives-packed car into a barrier outside a police station in the troubled northwest.

AFP