Daily Times

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government has decided to seek deportation of former Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif to London. On the other hand, the Pakistan Muslim League-N PML-N has said Nawaz Sharif will move the Lahore High Court against the Punjab government’s refusal to grant him an extension in his stay in England for treatment.

“The government has decided in principle to write a letter this week to the British government, seeking deportation of PML-N supreme leader Nawaz Sharif, as he is an absconder not fulfilling the terms and conditions of the bail granted to him on medical grounds,” Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information Firdous Ashiq Awan told a press conference here on Sunday evening.

She said Sharif had gone to London on November 19 last year for his treatment but was yet to be admitted to a hospital there, indicating that “it was a fixed match played by him, his party and a section of the media on his health”, paving the way for his departure to London.

“A section of media ran a campaign to influence opinion (of decision-makers) and build an impression that Nawaz was critically ill. It was rather a fixed match,” she said.

Rejecting the ‘fixed-match’ claim, Punjab Health Minister Yasmeen Rashid, who herself is a senior doctor, told newsmen in Lahore on Sunday that Nawaz Sharif’s medical reports were authentic and not issued under any influence.

Meanwhile, PML-N’s Punjab information secretary Azma Bokhari told media on Sunday: “We have received the written order of the PTI’s Punjab government regarding its refusal to grant extension in the stay of Nawaz Sharif abroad on flimsy grounds.

“The PML-N supremo will challenge the decision in the LHC this week.”

Last week, the Punjab government had refused to extend Sharif’s bail declaring that it had found no “legal, moral or medical ground” necessitating an extension.