A shoe hurled at Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leaders during a rally in Gujrat on Tuesday hit party leader Aleem Khan.

Although the shoe hit Aleem, it wasn't immediately clear who was the target of the attack as he was standing right next to PTI Chairman Imran Khan.

The incident — the third such attack on politicians in the span of a week — took place during a public gathering of PTI workers in Gujrat.

As Imran Khan was addressing the crowd atop a vehicle in the evening, a shoe came flying and hit Aleem, who was standing beside him.

The shoe hit the PTI leader squarely in the chest, although with lesser force than was perhaps intended. This was evident from the fact that Aleem, after fleetingly being shocked, brushed off his chest and continued to smile. Imran appeared to have not noticed that the incident happened.

The incident comes two days after a man threw a shoe at PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif during an event at the Jamia Naeemia seminary in Lahore's Garhi Shahu area. Three suspects were arrested after the episode.

The attack on the former prime minister had drawn widespread condemnation from all mainstream political and religious parties.

A day prior to that, on Saturday night, a man threw black ink on the face of Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif during a PML-N workers convention in Sialkot.

Asif was addressing the convention when the man standing near the stage threw the ink from a bottle while raising the slogan of “Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah”.

The minister’s face was smeared with black ink but he continued his speech and left the stage only after completing it. A man was arrested after the incident.