Nawaz and daughter Maryam Arrested At Lahore Airport
Pakistan’s former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam have been arrested after flying back to the country to face lengthy prison sentences, in a high-stakes gamble to galvanise their party ahead of an election on 25 July.
Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam have been flown to Islamabad after they were arrested upon their arrival at Lahore airport. Security in Lahore was beefed up as thousands of Sharif’s supporters marched to the airport.
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The father-daughter duo were sentenced to lengthy jail terms by an anti-corruption court in Pakistan last week. Sharif was handed a 10-year jail term over the purchase of luxury London flats, while his daughter Maryam was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Adding to the tension surrounding the forthcoming poll, a suicide bomber hit an election rally of a regional party in south-western Pakistan, killing 85 people. The bombing was the biggest attack in Pakistan in more than a year and the third incident of election-related violence this week.
More than 100 people were wounded in the suicide attack at the election rally in the town of Mastung.
Clashes broke out on Friday evening at the main highway entry point to Lahore between pro-Sharif protesters and police, who had been deployed in their thousands.
Mobile phone service had been cut off in mid-afternoon, as Sharif’s brother, Shehbaz, led about 10,000 party supporters on a march towards the city centre in defiance of a citywide ban on public gatherings, according to a Reuters witness.
Nawaz Sharif decried the tactics ordered by the caretaker government that took over in June ahead of the general election, as Pakistan’s constitution requires.
“What credibility will these elections have when the government is taking such a drastic action against our people and this crackdown is taking place all over the country?” he told Reuters at the airport in Abu Dhabi as he waited for a connecting flight to Lahore.
Pakistan’s third major political movement, the Pakistan Peoples Party, joined the criticism of the crackdown, with its prime ministerial candidate Bilawal Bhutto Zardari questioning why Sharif’s supporters would be prevented from gathering.
“Why is Lahore under siege? Right to peaceful protest is fundamental for democracy,” tweeted Bhutto Zardari, the son of two-time prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated at a political rally in 2007.
The country’s media regulator told local news channels to abstain from airing statements “by political leadership containing defamatory and derogatory content targeting various state institutions specifically judiciary and armed forces”, the regulator said in a statement.
After the verdict was announced, Nawaz and Maryam had said they would return to Pakistan and appeal against the decision. The National Accountability Bureau and Punjab governments had made arrangements to take the father-daughter duo into custody upon arrival. Their flight home took off from Abu Dhabi around 5pm local time and landed in Pakistan at around 8:45pm lokal time.
NE/