Shahzad Akbar (L) with Imran Khan during an event in Islamabad. File

Shahzad was saved by his spectacles, which were badly damaged. He described how the attack was launched in front of his four-year-old daughter, and left him with acid burns on an arm and the top of his head. Shahzad said he was lucky not to lose his sight

“Last evening, I was attacked at my address in England (where I am living in exile with my family) by unknown assailant/s who threw acidic liquid at me. Thankfully, my wife and children are safe, however, I sustained some injuries but nothing life-threatening,” Akbar said on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).

He added that police and emergency services arrived instantly and his house was now under protection. “I will not be intimidated nor bow down to those who are doing this,” he said without elaborating further.

Describing the alleged attack, Shahzad said that at 4.35pm on Sunday he was washing pots in his kitchen with his daughter when there was a knock at his front door: “I saw a thin person, around 5ft 6ins, wearing a red padded jacket like a delivery person. He had a motorbike helmet with the glass drawn down. I think he had gloves.

“In his right hand he had a plastic bottle. He squeezed and aimed for my face. It happened in a split second, and I slammed the door. Acid came on my face and clothes but the door got most of it. I shouted to my wife to call 999.”

Her first question was: “Have you been shot?” The father-of-two replied: “Not yet.” He had the presence of mind to rush to his downstairs washroom and spent many minutes dousing his face, but said “the top of my head and an ear started burning.”

Paramedics arrived in an ambulance and took him to Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge, where “nurses in bodysuits had me strip and washed me from head to toe.” After eight hours he was discharged, with his acid-burnt arm and other injuries bandaged.

Akbar was a former special assistant to the prime minister (SAPM) during the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) government. He had left Pakistan soon after the PTI chairman Imran Khan was ousted through a no-confidence motion in April last year. He had reportedly left for a Gulf country from where he departed for the United Kingdom.