Daily Times

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Maryam Nawaz on Monday warned of staging a hunger strike outside Kot Lakhpat prison if her father Nawaz Sharif is not allowed homemade food, a private TV channel reported.

“The fake government has placed a restriction on homemade food for Nawaz Sharif sahib. The staff taking the meals has been standing outside the prison for the last five hours,” Maryam wrote on Twitter. She said the former prime minister has declined to have food provided to him by the jail authorities. “I would approach the court if they did not withdraw the restriction,” she said. “If I did not get help even from the court, then I will sit outside Kot Lakhpat prison. I will even stage a hunger strike, if I had to,” she warned.

Maryam said she does not trust the ‘oppressors’, expressing her fears that they can add anything to Nawaz’s food. “My warning should not be considered an idle threat … I will get through with it,” she cautioned.

Nawaz Sharif is currently serving seven-year imprisonment in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills case in Kot Lakhpat jail. Last week, Punjab chief minister’s spokesperson Shahbaz Gill had said, “No meal restrictions have been placed on Nawaz Sharif as reported by a section of the media. Even today [July 2], his meal came from his home.”

The Punjab government only suggested forming a doctors’ panel to advise diet chart and provide him a cook for the same, he had said. “Dr Adnan, personal physician of Nawaz Sharif, meets him regularly but every time misleads everyone on his health issues only to keep his job. This is unfortunate. He is not a cardiologist but the Sharif family keeps insisting on his cardiac expertise, only for propaganda purposes,” he had said.