- Monday, November 25, 2024
A special flight will land in Islamabad from Dubai before proceeding to Lahore, where Sharif will address the gathering at the Minar-e-Pakistan.
By: Shubham Ghosh
FORMER Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif is set to return to his home country in a chartered aircraft from Dubai on October 21, bringing to an end his four-year-long self-imposed exile in the UK, according to a media report.
The flight carrying Nawaz will have the name “Umeed-e-Pakistan” (Pakistan’s hope) which can carry approximately 150 passengers, the country’s Geo News reported.
“The booking has been made and all arrangements are in place,” the report said.
The 73-year-old three-time prime minister is expected to lead his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party in the general elections likely to be held in January next year.
Sharif will be accompanied by members of his party and journalists during his return to Pakistan.
The special flight will land in Islamabad from Dubai before proceeding to Lahore, where Sharif will address the gathering at the Minar-e-Pakistan where the historic Lahore Resolution or Pakistan Resolution was passed in 1940.
Sharif will reach Saudi Arabia from London for Umrah on Wednesday (11). He will stay in Saudi Arabia for a week during which he will hold important meetings. He will arrive in Dubai a week later. The former prime minister will be accompanied to the Saudi visit by his close aides Mian Nasir Janjua, Waqar Ahmed, his friend Karim Yousaf and a few others.
Nasir Janjua, the owner of Pakistan’s MIDJAC company, spent nearly three years in exile in London with Sharif and returned to Pakistan just a few months ago, the report added.
Earlier this year, the former head of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Bashir Memon, revealed that former prime minister Imran Khan and his then- principal secretary Azam Khan time and again forced him to use all legal and illegal means, including the use of torture and anti-terrorism laws, to force businessman Mian Nasir Janjua to give a false confessional statement against PML-N senior vice president Maryam Nawaz in the judge Arshed Malik video scandal.
Memon said it was planned in the PM House that Janjua, who has been a 30-years-old trusted friend of Sharif, should be made the main culprit since he is a businessman and would be an easy target to become an approver against Maryam and senior PML-N leadership. Janjua then left Pakistan for London and didn’t return until Imran Khan was in power.
Sharif stepped down as the country’s prime minister (third stint) in 2017 after he was disqualified for life from holding public office by the Supreme Court for not declaring a receivable salary. He has been living in London since 2019 after the LHC granted him four-week permission allowing him to go abroad for his treatment. He was serving a seven-year imprisonment at Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail in the Al-Azizia Mills case before he was allowed to proceed to London in 2019 on “medical grounds”.
In 2020, an accountability court declared him a proclaimed offender in the Toshakhana vehicles case. He is also accused of obtaining luxury cars from the treasury house by paying just 15 per cent of the price of these vehicles. He was convicted in the Al-Azizia Mills and Avenfield corruption cases in 2018.
He served as Pakistan’s prime minister between 1990 and 1993, 1997 and 1999 when he was removed in a coup by former army chief Pervez Musharraf and between 2013 and 2017.
(With PTI inputs)
