Daily Times

Former premier Nawaz Sharif’s daughter Maryam Nawaz on Wednesday said that the decision to return to Pakistan was linked with her mother’s health.

Begum Kulsoom is receiving medical treatment at the Harley Street Clinic in London, where she was admitted after she had a cardiac arrest on June 14. She has been on life support since. Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz reached London the same day to tend to Begum Kulsoom.

Speaking to the media outside the medical facility, Maryam said she would return back to Pakistan on the first available flight as soon her ailing mother’s condition improves.

When asked about the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) sudden proceedings, Maryam refused to comment on the matter.

Maryam had remarked on Monday that she was not concerned about the upcoming general election or politics and only focusing on her mother’s health.

“My sole concern is my mother right now. May God grant her health,” she remarked while speaking to media outside Harley Street Clinic.

“There are times in your life when relations take precedence over everything,” she added.

Maryam will be contesting the forthcoming elections from NA-127 and PP-173 constituencies of Lahore.

Earlier in the day, an accountability court allowed a three-day exemption to Nawaz and Maryam in the Avenfield reference against the Sharif family.

The Avenfield reference, pertaining to the Sharif family’s London properties, is among three references filed against the Sharif family by NAB last year on the Supreme Court’s directives in the Panama Papers case. Begum Kulsoom was admitted to hospital in London in August last year after doctors discovered she was suffering from throat cancer. She has been undergoing treatment since.

Published in Daily Times, June 28^th 2018.