ISLAMABAD, 10 September 2007 — A tense Pakistan yesterday awaited the arrival of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from exile.
Sharif boarded a Pakistan International Airlines flight to Islamabad at London’s Heathrow airport. His brother, Shahbaz, dropped out at the last moment.
“I’m feeling great,” Sharif told reporters at the airport. Uniformed British police escorted him through a crowd of supporters on his way to the flight. The flight is scheduled to arrive in Islamabad at 7:40 this morning.
“I have a duty, I have a responsibility to fulfill at all costs and that is democracy,” Sharif said.
Pakistan’s Geo television channel quoted Sharif as saying that he had advised Shahbaz to stay back. A court last week issued a warrant of arrest against Shahbaz in connection with a murder case.
According to a government source, Pakistan plans to deport Sharif on arrival in Islamabad. The source, speaking on condition of annonymity, said: “Because of the Supreme Court’s orders, the government will not arrest Nawaz Sharif. Rather, he will be detained at Islamabad airport’s lounge and deported.” The source refused to say to which country he will be deported to.
On the eve of his arrival, police manned roadblocks and rounded up hundreds of supporters of the former prime minister.
Earlier in the day, Geo broadcast an interview with Sharif. The two-time prime minister told the channel: “I know that this is a risky course for me and there can be dangers in it. But I am doing this for Pakistan. Nothing else can be more pleasing for me than freeing (Pakistan) from the clutches of military dictatorship. I will be happy that for a small price — my going to jail — Pakistan will get freedom.”
More than 2,000 Sharif supporters in Punjab have been detained in a crackdown over the past four days and others have gone into hiding, said Ahsan Iqbal, a spokesman for Sharif’s party. Police and security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, confirmed about 700 arrests.
Yesterday, police in Lahore with orders to search for members of Sharif’s party stopped cars on the main road leading to Islamabad. Police also manned checkpoints in and around the capital. Media reports said authorities planned to prevent anyone from traveling to the city’s international airport this morning unless they were booked on a flight.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch said Pakistan should immediately release the detained opposition activists. The organization said that President Gen. Pervez Musharraf should not seek to undermine Pakistan’s legal system by having Sharif locked up.
“It’s extremely important to show that people are sick and tired of this dictatorial regime,” said Zulfikar Ali Khan Khosa, president of the Punjab branch of Sharif’s party, predicting huge crowds would travel to the airport despite the crackdown.
Naseer Bhutta, the leader of a group of lawyers affiliated to Sharif’s party, left Lahore yesterday for the capital with around 40 other supporters. “We don’t want some kind of guerrilla war, because we have a principled stand,” Bhutta said before departing. “If they come with the bullet and the gun, we will respond with our passion and our flags.”
Sharif’s return could crank up pressure on Musharraf, who wants to win a new five-year presidential term from lawmakers by mid-October. Before announcing his return, Sharif forged alliances with most opposition parties other than Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, which has been in talks with Musharraf on a power-sharing deal. Leaders of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) have wowed to receive Sharif. However, the government has not arrested workers of MMA and other opposition parties. Both Sharif and Bhutto want to contest general elections due by mid-January 2008.
— Additional input from agencies
