As former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was about to turn himself to the jail authorities on Tuesday, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Information and Broadcasting Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan sent him well wishes on Twitter.
She said in a tweet, “May Mian Sahib [Nawaz Sharif] does not fall sick in the prison again. Hopefully, after spending six week at Jati Umra, his mental stress would have gone.”
Nawaz Sharif, whose bail term expired at midnight, was set to return to the prison along with a procession of party workers and leaders led by his daughter Maryam Nawaz in a bid to flex political muscles.
Punjab government spokesperson Shahbaz Gill termed the plan to take a convicted person to the prison in a form of a procession a “bizarre logic”.
He maintained that Nawaz Sharif was convicted by the court, and released on a six-week bail. “Instead of carrying out rallies, [the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) should realise that] it is a matter of shame,” he said, adding that these were old tactics of the PML-N to escape accountability and garner public support.
He asserted that in ‘Naya’ (new) Pakistan, the law would be equal for the rich and the poor, and suggested PML-N supporters to advise their leadership to return the looted wealth of the general public.