Was asleep when I fell, sustained injuries: Naeem Bukhari

LONDON: Prominent lawyer and PTI leader Naeem Bukhari on Sunday said he was “asleep” when he fell at a London underground tube station and sustained injuries.

In an interview with Geo News, Bukhari rubbished reports that a man had attempted to murder him.

Bukhari revealed that on May 1, he fell asleep during his journey to his hotel after having dinner at his friend Barrister Iftikhar Ahmed’s house in North London.

“We reached at 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 the wrong exit; that was the time when I fell while still being asleep," said the lawyer.

"I fell down and four of my floating ribs were broken. Doctors have examined the injuries to my head. They have conducted two MRIs so far and they want to find out why I fell unconscious," said Bukhari. "I informed the doctors that I did not even wake up."

He termed certain reports about him being beaten up and assaulted as baseless. “Nobody pushed me, shouted at me or attacked me."

Media reports mixed Bukhari’s incident with the attack on Sir Robert Maplas on April 27 at the same station where the PTI leader fell and sustained injuries.

Bukhari said he had arrived in London on Arpil 28 and “there is no question of me being attacked on April 27 when I was still in Pakistan and preparing to take the flight to London”.

Bukhari observed that too many speculations were doing rounds on the media.

“Trust me, I was asleep when I fell down. The British Transport Police has 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.”

He said his plans to go to the United States to raise funds for Namal college had also been delayed due to the incident. "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”.

British police deny reports of ‘murder attempt’

The British Transport Police (BTP) had earlier said that no “murder attempt” was made on Bukhari who remains admitted at St Mary’s Hospital after sustaining injuries on the night of May 1.

Reports in Pakistani media claimed that the BTP were treating the April 27 incident at Marble Arch “involving Bukhari as “attempted murder.” A spokesman of the police, however, told Geo News that authorities do not have any information of a murder attempt on Bukhari.

The police clarified that the victim attacked on the night of April 27 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 BTP spokesman said CCTV cameras had aided the authorities to arrest and charge a man connected to the murder attempt on Sir Malpas.

The spokesman said that it appealed to members of the public for information and didn’t say at any stage that it was looking for anyone of “Asian descent”, as stated in some Pakistani media reports.

Bukhari had dinner with his friend and noted lawyer Barrister Iftikhar Ahmed at his North London home on the night of May 1. 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 the ambulance was called and Bukhari was taken to the hospital.

A spokesman of the London Ambulance Services corroborated the version of Barrister 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 said 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 source added that Bukhari is likely to be discharged on Tuesday.

A spokesman of Scotland Yard said that it didn’t deal with the matter of Bukhari or the industrialist who was attacked. “London Underground is dealt by the British Transport Police and officers of the BTP led the investigations”.

Various rumors have flooded social media making claims that Bukhari was assaulted and beaten up, leading to the publication of fake news related to the incident.

The prominent lawyer and television host, joined Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in 2016. He represented the PTI chief in a high-profile disqualification case in the Supreme Court and also led the party's legal team in Panama Papers case against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.