Sir: The day the nation had been waiting for finally came around, and delivered as promised. The Supreme Court (SC)’s long awaited verdict on the Avenfield case was finally revealed to the public, and the reactions were mixed, with some celebrating the judgment, while others called it yet another attack on the progress of democracy in Pakistan. As per SC’s decision, former Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif was sentenced to ten years in prison, and fined eight million pounds, while his daughter, Maryam Nawaz was sentenced to seven years, and fined two million pounds. Her husband, Captain (retd) M Safdar was also sentenced to one year in prison, while warrants were released for the capture of Nawaz’s two sons, Hassan and Hussain, as they were deemed to have absconded from the country. Furthermore, the SC also directed the federal government to confiscate the exclusive properties in London immediately and barred Nawaz, Maryam and Safdar from contesting the upcoming General Elections. Throughout this announcement, the Sharifs themselves were in London, and it wasn’t long before Maryam took to twitter to criticize the verdict, and called a small step in her family’s “fight against oppression”. She also announced that the family had every intention of coming back to Pakistan, just as soon as her mother, Kulsoom Nawaz was feeling better, as she has been in hospital undergoing cancer treatment. After consulting with their lawyers, it was announced that the former chairman of the PML-N, and his daughter would be returning to the country on 13 July, 2018. This news took me by surprise. While I wholeheartedly support the decision of the SC, and feel that it is high time that Nawaz Sharif gets what he deserves, I have to commend his decision of facing his judgment head on. Even though there is a strong possibility that, like most other such decisions, Nawaz will not have to spend even a second behind bars, the fact that he is willing to take that risk, no matter how miniscule, is heartening. While his actions do raise the possibility that he is quite confident of the end result and expects that his sentence will be overturned, the onus is now on the SC to prove their worth. As soon as Nawaz’s plane touches down, he should be arrested by the authorities in charge, and sent to jail where he belongs. MOHID KHAN Lahore Published in Daily Times, July 11th 2018.