ISLAMABAD, May 11 Pakistan's ambassador to Iran was injured in a knife attack in Tehran by an Afghan national on Tuesday evening.

M.B. Abbasi was walking back home after a workout session at a gym when the 23-year-old Afghan attacked him with the knife. The envoy was reported to have had a verbal exchange with the man. He was without guards at the time of the attack.

Police arrested the attacker and are interrogating him.

News agencies quoted the Tehran police chief as saying that Mr Abbasi was hurt in a confrontation. “The ambassador went to the gym several times a week without his bodyguards,” he said.

“The man attacked Mr Abbasi twice or thrice, but Mr Abbasi skilfully evaded the assault,” Muzzafar Jafferi, a spokesman for the Pakistan Embassy in Iran, told Dawn on phone.

He said the ambassador had suffered an injury on his head and was taken to a hospital, where doctors stitched his wound. Mr Jafferi said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad condemned the attack and sent his representative to the hospital.