Lahore: Former Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam, sentenced to jail for corruption, are likely to be arrested mid-air, even before they land in Lahore on Friday evening, reports suggested.
Security has been tightened and over 10,000 police officers have been deployed at Lahore airport where Sharif's plane from London is scheduled to land.
According to reports, a team of Pakistan's National Accountability Bureau is trying to leave for Abu Dhabi to board the flight taken by the Sharifs, so they can be arrested as soon as the plane enters Pakistani airspace.
Meanwhile, on-board flight to UAE's Abu Dhabi airport, Nawaz Sharif said: "I'll be taken straight to jail. But I am doing this for people of Pakistan, sacrificing for generations to come. Such opportunity won't come again. Let's build destiny of Pakistan together."
Sharif and daughter Maryam landed at UAE's Abu Dhabi International Airport on Friday morning.
Sharif alleges the military is aiding a "judicial witchhunt" against him and his PML-N party. The party's past five years in power has been punctuated by the civil-military discord that has plagued Pakistan since its inception.
"Nawaz really believes this is about democracy and his legacy," Musadik Malik, Sharif ally and former PML-N cabinet minister, told Reuters.
"That is why he is willing to lose 10 years of his life over this."
Sharif's PML-N expects a groundswell of support as he returns from London, where his wife Kulsoom is critically ill and undergoing cancer treatment.
To prevent PML-N workers staging a hero's welcome on the streets, authorities said they will arrest the father and daughter upon landing and transport them to the capital Islamabad by helicopter, local media reported.
Party officials say the police have started a crackdown against them, detaining hundreds of workers in the early hours on Friday.
Recent opinion polls suggest PML-N has lost its lead nationally to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party of arch-rival Khan, whose anti-corruption message has resonated with many Pakistanis.
Khan has painted Sharif as a "criminal" who has looted the state for decades, and welcomes his prison term as overdue accountability.
Sharif was ordered jailed after failing to explain how the family acquired the London flats in a case stemming from 2016 Panama Papers revelations that showed they owned the apartments through off-shore companies. Maryam was convicted for concealing ownership of the apartments. The both deny wrongdoing.
Sharif, 68, has cast himself as a defender of democracy, a far cry from the start of his political life when he was the protege of military dictator General Zia ul-Haq and had his career nurtured by the generals in the 1980s.
He was elected prime minister in 1990-93. A second stint in power was ended by a military coup in 1999, prompting a period in jail for Sharif and years in exile in London. When he returned to power in 2013, he clashed with the military over how to deal with Islamist militants and his desire for friendlier relations with arch-foe India.
After the Supreme Court disqualified Sharif in July 2017 for not declaring a small source of income which he denied receiving, he toured the nuclear-armed country urging voters to protect the "sanctity of the vote".
"Despite seeing the bars of prison in front of my eyes, I am going to Pakistan," Sharif told Pakistani journalists this week in London, where he vowed to re-assert "civilian supremacy".
The opposition Pakistan People Party (PPP) has also alleged "pre-poll rigging" this week, but did not specifically name the armed forces.
The military, which has ruled Pakistan for about half its history since 1947, has denied interfering in modern-day politics. It plans to place 371,000 soldiers around polling stations so there can a "free and fair" elections, it added.
Sharif's return comes at a time of dwindling fortunes for his party, which one year ago was considered a run-away favourite to retain power.
After the Supreme Court ousted Sharif last July, the courts barred him from heading the PML-N party he founded. His brother Shehbaz became PML-N's president, but Sharif remains the power behind the throne.
Since then, a host of his allies have been either disqualified by the courts, or face corruption cases. Many PML-N lawmakers have also defected to Khan's party.
PML-N has also been riven by internal divisions. Sections of the party oppose Sharif's combative approach against the army and fear it will turn off voters in a deeply conservative and patriotic Muslim nation of 208 million people.
The kind of reception Sharif receives on the streets of Lahore will be viewed carefully in Pakistan, where political popularity is often measured by the size of rallies that politicians can attract.
PML-N leaders say authorities have began a crackdown against union council leaders, the street-level party workers who bring out people on the streets.
"Those who think they can scare us...open your ears and hear this: we are winning this election," Shehbaz Sharif told reporters in Lahore on Thursday.
Thousands of supporters are expected to congregate at the Lahore airport for the dramatic home-coming for Nawaz Sharif, a three-time prime minister who wants to campaign for his party ahead of the July 25 general elections.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s media regulator has ordered all the television channels to stop live telecast of briefings of political leaders containing ‘defamatory and derogatory’ content.
The step has been taken to ensure that Nawaz Sharif doesn’t turn public opinion in his favour for the upcoming elections.
The media regulator also banned live telecast of speeches by leaders against judiciary, armed forces, is seen as an effort to black out Sharif when he lands in Pakistan on Friday evening.
According to reports, Pakistan's Punjab government has ordered to shut mobile networks in Lahore from 3 pm to 12 midnight today.
Nawaz Sharif, 68, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison by a Pakistan accountability court for corrupt practices linked to his family’s purchase of London flats. The former prime minister also faces two more cases following Panama Paper scandal.
Sharif is accompanied by his daughter Maryam Nawaz who is also convicted and sentenced to seven years of prison.
Before leaving for Pakistan from London, Maryam, said: “It is the most difficult decision of our lives because my mother is on the ventilator and we don't know what happens next, their is no pain like that of leaving your mother behind in such situation but there's a national duty and we must make this important journey.”
This dramatic return of the former PM comes ahead of Pakistan’s general elections which will pit PML-N against its main political rival, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, led by Imran Khan.
Top 10 facts of this big story:
- The Sharifs are likely to be arrested on the tarmac after their plane lands around 6.16 pm local time and then flown to Islamabad by helicopter. They are likely to be taken to the Adiala jail.
- "I'll be taken straight to jail. But I'm doing this for people of Pak, sacrificing for generations to come. Such an opportunity won't come again. Let's build the destiny of Pakistan together," Nawaz Sharif said at the Abu Dhabi airport.
- The government is seen to be taking all possible steps to prevent Nawaz Sharif from drawing political capital from his return and arrest. Thousands of supporters of Nawaz Sharif are expected to crowd the airport for his arrival.
- The decision to arrest the Sharifs even before they land was reportedly taken by the interim government after a statement last night from Nawaz Sharif's mother Shamim Akhtar, who said: "I won't let them go to jail. If they are sent to jail, then I will go with them."
- Pakistan's media regulator has ordered television channels to stop live telecast of briefings of political leaders containing "defamatory and derogatory content". The regulator claimed that "malicious and indecent content" was being aired live by television channels and sought only telecast of edited footage.
- Nawaz Sharif, 68, was sentenced to 10 years in prison by a Pakistani accountability court for corrupt practices linked to his family's purchase of four London flats. He faces two more corruption cases against him following the Panama Paper scandal.
- After the former prime minister declared that he was returning from London "despite seeing a prison cell in front of him," the police started targeting leaders of his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, or PML-N. The July 25 election will pit the PML-N against its main political rival, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, which is led by cricket star-turned-politician Imran Khan.
- Nawaz Sharif wants to appeal his conviction and says he will face the jail sentence. Officials have said a helicopter each had been positioned at airports in Islamabad and Lahore airports for the arrest.
- His daughter Maryam Nawaz, 44, was also convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison. Before leaving London, she called going back to Pakistan "to go to prison the most difficult decision of our lives because my mother is on the ventilator and we don't know what happens next, there is no pain like that of leaving your mother behind in such situation but there's a national duty and we must make this important journey".
- A photo of Nawaz Sharif saying goodbye to his wife in hospital was tweeted by many of his supporters. One tweet described it as a picture that "will haunt many in future".
