By Muhammad Najeeb, IANS
Islamabad/London : Pakistan was bracing for its biggest challenge in recent times with former prime minister Nawaz Sharif set to return home from exile Monday along with brother Shahbaz, and the government weighing its options to arrest or deport them when they land.
Sharif reiterated his determination to return no matter what the consequences might be and attempted to set the Pakistani authorities off track by booking himself on multiple flights from London.
Sharif acknowledged he might be arrested on his return on corruption charges from his days in power in the 1990s. Media reports said he may be deported on arrival while Information Minister Muhammad Ali Durrani said the government was considering different options if the Sharifs landed in Pakistan.
Back home, Sharif’s faction of the Pakistan Muslim League was preparing a “historic welcome” for him and Shahbaz, even as the authorities arrested a number of PML supporters across the country and tightened security in Islamabad and Lahore.
The two cities, in fact, presented contrasting looks, with a five-km area around the Islamabad Airport being sealed off to the general public and special passes being issued to airport workers.
Airport authorities refused security passes to journalists, saying only those on government duty would be allowed in.
The streets of Sharif’s hometown Lahore wore a festive look with colourful hoardings carrying his huge portraits and slogans in his favour like “Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif”, “Our hero Nawaz Sharif”.
Similar hoardings were seen in Islamabad’s twin city of Rawalpindi, where the Pakistani Army headquarters are located.
Reports from Lahore said that the Rehman Street and Sharif’s home constituency Gwalmandi have been tastefully decorated.
“We are preparing special dishes and have decided to distribute food among people,” a restaurant owner from Lahore said in a Royal TV programme. TV reports showed people decorating streets and shops to welcome the deposed prime minister.
Though no clear arrival plan has been announced, Sharif’s party officials said that he would be flying in by Gulf Air with a stopover in Muscat. The flight is scheduled to reach Islamabad shortly before noon Monday.
However, reports said that Sharif and his entourage had also booked seats on Ittehad, Thai Airways and British Airways. All flights were scheduled to take off from London’s Heathrow airport of London Sunday evening.
In London, journalists accompanying Sharif had been asked to reach the airport by 2 pm Sunday without being informed about the airline and the flight time. Almost 40 journalists are travelling with Sharif and his brother, 11 members of their families and some party workers.
“Yes, I am coming back…and the campaign against (the military) regime will start the moment I land in Pakistan,” Sharif told Aaj TV hours before his scheduled departure from London.
“I’m going to lead the people of Pakistan against the dictatorship, and the dictator sitting in Islamabad should give up his futile efforts to stop me,” he added.
From his Park Lane apartment in central London, Sharif had made himself accessible to the international media, freely giving interviews to journalists and television channels. He had often spoken to Indian television channels on camera and by phone.
Speaking to The Sunday Times, Sharif claimed that he, like former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, had been approached by emissaries of Musharraf: “I would not deviate from my principles. I don’t want to strengthen the hands of a dictator – I want undiluted democracy.”
He pointed out that both he and Bhutto had signed a Charter of Democracy in May last year which “clearly states there can be no parleys or deal-making with dictators. I’m dismayed and disappointed (that she has reneged on this).
“She came to my house in Jeddah, then we met here in London and I thought we’d buried the past. It was time for all democrats to join together. To have one of us take the other course and start supporting the dictator for personal reasons is too bad.”
Bhutto had been in talks with Musharraf on a power sharing deal that would have seen him continuing in office. These parleys have now collapsed.
Sharif said that he wished he and Bhutto returned together as had been originally planned. “It would have been great,” he said, shaking his head. “We would have been unstoppable.”
Sharif insisted he will be tough on terrorism and expel Taliban members from Pakistani soil if he comes to power. He said: “Pakistan must never again allow anyone to use its territory for promoting terrorism. It is very painful to read all these things about Pakistan becoming a training ground for terrorists.
“I’d like to see a forward-looking progressive Pakistan, not a country associated with terror.”
In a surprise move on Saturday, two foreign envoys – Lebanese lawmaker Saad Hariri and Saudi intelligence chief Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz Al Saud – after meeting President Pervez Musharraf addressed the media, saying Sharif should respect the agreement under which he promised to stay away from Pakistan for 10 years.
Sharif and his family members were sent into exile in Saudi Arabia in December 2000, a year after Musharraf deposed the prime minister in a bloodless coup.
After arriving in Islamabad, the Sharifs plan to travel in a motorcade to their home and political base in Lahore, about 290 km to the south. The trip through Punjab province could take three days as he stops to greet his supporters along the way, Sharif’s party said.
“We know this is a risky course and there can be dangers in it for Nawaz Sharif. But he’s doing this for Pakistan,” the PML-N’s Nisar Khan said. For Sharif, nothing else can be more pleasing than “freeing the country from the clutches of military dictatorship,” Khan added.
Meanwhile, several other political parties like the Muttahida Majils-e-Amal (MMA) and Imran Khan’s Tehrik-e-Insaaf have announced plans to welcome the Sharifs.
“I myself will go to the airport to welcome Nawaz Sharif,” MMA secretary general Qazi Hussain Ahmed told IANS.
He said that since Sharif has announced he would launch a campaign against the dictatorship of President Pervez Musharraf, “we have decided to support the campaign and welcome him”.