Lahore: Pakistan’s former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz are all set return to the country on Friday to face arrest in a corruption case amid high security and a massive crackdown on his party activists. All national highways and motorway will remain closed ahead of the arrival of the father-daughter duo from London.
According to a DC report, the duo may be held mid-air. The National Highways and Motorway Police have been directed to close all the major entry and exit routes, for preventive measure, according to Dunya News.
To keep the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supporters away from the two, containers have also been installed at various points across Lahore.
Apart from this, around 22 officials of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and 100 elite commandos will be deputed at Lahore’s Allama Iqbal International Airport, where the two will arrive, as per the reports.
All the arrangement to shift the convicts in Adiala jail through helicopter have been completed and even the accountability court judge Muhammad Bashir has been asked to reach there.
“Maryam and I are coming back to face prison and even if they send me to the gallows, we know that freedom cannot be won without sacrifice. It is not easy to leave my wife on a ventilator in a hospital but I am returning along with my daughter to play our role to rid of this slavery,” several media reports quoted, Nawaz, as speaking at a party conference in the ballroom of the Grosvenor House Hotel in central London’s Mayfair district.
Meanwhile, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) is endeavouring to give a rousing welcome to Nawaz and Maryam on their arrival in Lahore.
In order to “maintain law and order” in the city, 10,000 police officers will be deployed across Lahore on Friday, Dawn quoted Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Operations Shahzad Akbar, as saying.
On Friday, PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif is expected to lead a rally to Lahore’s Allama Iqbal International Airport to receive Nawaz and Maryam.
On July 6, Nawaz was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment and a fine of eight million pounds was slapped on him in the Avenfield reference case, while Maryam was sentenced to seven years of jail and fined two million pounds, by the Accountability Court.
With agencies inputs