LONDON: Prominent lawyer and PTI leader Naeem Bukhari says he was “asleep” when he fell at a London underground tube station and ended up breaking four ribs and injuries to the head.
In an interview with Geo News on Sunday, Bukhari rubbished reports on some media that a “murder attempt” was made on his life by a man and explained what exactly happened to him on the night of 1st May, 2018.
Bukhari revealed that he was coming to his hotel after having dinner at friend Barrister Iftikhar Ahmed’s house in North London and fell asleep during the journey. “We reached the Marble Arch station and I fell asleep when my wife woke me up. I was not conscious when I left the train and took a wrong exit and that’s the time when I fell while still being asleep. I fell down and my four floating ribs were broken. Doctors have been examining injuries to my head. They have done two MRIs so far and they want to find out why I fell unconscious; I am telling them I didn’t even wake up,” said Bukhari. He said reports he was beaten up and assaulted are completely baseless. “Nobody pushed me, shouted at me or attacked me.”
Media reports mixed Naeem Bukhari’s incident with an attack on Sir Robert Malpas on 27th April at the same Marble Arch station where Naeem Bukhari fell and sustained injuries. Bukhari said he arrived in London on 28th of April and “there’s no question of me being attacked on 27th when I was still in Pakistan and preparing to take flight to London”.
Bukhari said there were too many speculations about him but he said: “Trust me, I was asleep when I fell down. The British Transport Police said I wasn’t attacked. I should have gone straight. I should have followed my wife, I was asleep. Nothing happened, I am back to normal, I going through trauma.” Bukhari said he was supposed to leave for America to raise funds for NAMAL College but “now that my four chest ribs are broken, I don’t think I will be able to undertake that journey, I will be going back to work”.
Meanwhile, the British Transport Police (BTP) Sunday told The News that no “murder attempt” was made Naeem Bukhari who remains admitted in St Mary’s Hospital after sustaining injuries on the night of 1st May.
Reports in Pakistani media claimed that the BTP are treating the April 27 incident at Marble Arch “involving Naeem Bukhari as “attempted murder” but a spokesman for the police told this reporter that the police had no record of Naeem Bukhari being attacked for his life.
The police clarified that the victim attacked on the night of 27th April was leading industrialist Sir Robert Malpas, 90, who was allegedly pushed in front of a train by another man. The former Eurotunnel chairman was saved by a heroic bystander Riyad El-Hassani, 24.
The British Transport Police spokesman said with help from the CCTV cameras they had already arrested and charged a man in connection with murder attempt on Sir Malpas. The BTP said Paul William Crossley of Leyton High Road, London, had been charged with attempted murder on the life of Sir Malpas. He appeared before the Westminster Magistrates Court on 30th April and was remanded into custody.
Crossley will appear again at Blackfriars Crown Court on May 29. The spokesman said they had appealed to the public for information and didn’t say at any stage that they were looking for anyone of “Asian descent”.
Bukhari had dinner with his friend and noted lawyer Barrister Iftikhar Ahmed at his North London home on the night of 1st May. Ahmed, the former Pakistan Army major-turned-lawyer who shifted to London after Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s hanging, told Geo News that he received a call from Bukhari’s wife an hour after the couple left their home that he has “passed out” at the Marble Arch station.
He said ambulance was called and Bukhari was taken to the hospital. A spokesman for the London Ambulance Services corroborated the version of Barrister Iftikhar Ahmed and confirmed they treated “a man at the Marble Arch station who had sustained injuries” and was found to be in “critical situation”.
The spokesman said that they took the injured man to the nearby St Mary’s Hospital for urgent treatment. A source at the St Mary’s Hospital told that Naeem Bukhari was brought to the hospital with “highly critical injuries and was immediately admitted in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU)” and discharged to a general ward for care once he was “out of danger” after about 24 hours. The hospital source confirmed that Bukhari had sustained multiple injuries.
The hospital source added that Naeem Bukhari was likely to be discharged on Monday. Various rumours have flooded the social media making claims that Bukhari was assaulted and beaten up, leading to publication of lots of fake news.
