In a dramatic development today, former prime minister and exiled PML(N) leader Nawaz Sharif has been deported to Saudi Arabia. Sharif, who announced his return to Pakistan earlier this month after seven years of exile, was sent back to Saudi Arabia just few hours after his arrival in Pakistan.
He spent around 4 hours at airport, negotiating with Saudi and Pakistani officials. Deportation was certainly one of the options that Government of Pakistan had but not many analysts believed that they would actually go ahead with it. Till the last minute, it appeared from electronic media coverage of the event that Nawaz Sharif will be arrested and jailed and even the arrest warrants were produced and charges were handed over to Nawaz Sharif. We saw visuals of his arrest in which he was man-handled by police officials. But then we heard in a dramatic manner that he is being sent back to Saudi Arabia in a special PIA flight. Now we will see another legal battle if this action is a contempt of Supreme Court of Pakistan’s verdict on Nawaz Sharif’s return in August.
Geo website has this report on the event:
Former Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif was sent back into exile Monday. According to reports he has been sent to Saudi Arabia in a special airplane. Earlier, the flight of former prime minister Mian Nawaz Sharif was landed at Islamabad Airport at the scheduled time of 8:42 am Monday morning. The military and security forces troops were deployed at Islamabad airport. In Islamabad, Police and PML-N workers were engaged in hide and seek and scuffles at various places.
Media men were restricted to parking lot of the airport as the airplane of former prime minister landed at the airport. The interior ministry officials and other top officials of the government were present at the airport on the occasion. Mian Nawaz Sharif traveled in the Club Class from London to Islamabad and before landing at Islamabad he went to the economy class to join the party workers.
Geo News correspondent Azhar Javed who was accompanied with Nawaz Sharif in air journey to Islamabad reported that Muslim League workers surrounded their leader and chanted slogans. Mian Nawaz Sharif later taken out of the airplane from backdoor. A flying coach was parked near the plane, which was cordoned off by the police commandoes, Azhar Javed reported. The former prime minister left the plane after 90 minutes and held talks with the government of Pakistan officials and Saudi government representatives. The matter of his returning back into exile to Saudi Arabia was also discussed but Nawaz Sharif opted to be arrested at home instead of going back into exile.
Later he was detained and sent back to Jeddah by a special airplane.
This entire episode raises many questions in the minds of ordinary Pakistanis. Is this violation of SC order? Why didn’t government just arrest him and put him on trial, if there are any cases against him? What will happen now in court and does this mean that government is going ahead with direct confrontation with superior courts? And what it would mean to already growing confrontation between Army and the civil society? We really don’t know. All we can hope, as an ordinary Pakistani, that may Allah have mercy on Pakistan. I am NO fan of Nawaz, Benazir or most of our politicians because of their past performances but I would rather see people of Pakistan deciding their fate through power of ballet and vote and NOT some individuals sitting in President’s House making decisions. I do not see anything good coming out today’s actions and I think its a big setback to rule of law.
One of ATP reader, Saleem A. Taimoor, made a very valid and appropriate comment on my earlier post on Nawaz Sharif return and I personally share his views. Situation in Pakistan today concludes following:
1. Army has been put in direct confrontation with the civil society.
2. People hate to see green lawns and swimming pools inside the army cantonments as well Mercedes for generals on the streets; where over 40% of the people can’t have one day meal, this new elite is eating up all resources – look at the Defense Housing Authorities, posh livnig styles of the army officers and their families, best schools and hospitals run at Income tax payers money; hate has gone deep within the masses for the army not for the general alone. Musharraf has pulled the army in this quagmire.
3. Tens (if not hundreds) of soldiers have died in armed clashes with civilians and in bomb blasts.
4. Media and the judiciary are being put to test with oppressive measures.
5. Government is ready to take on the judiciary now (starting with today’s deportation of Nawaz). Executive is not ready to obey the judiciary.
6. Youth is getting disconnected with Pakistan – all running around for safe havens abroad or for grabbing too much money to join the elite – the social fabric is quickly disintegrating.
7. The parliament is full of people who are unable to comprehend the social disintegration we are going through.
I am sure there are thousands of others who share the same views. Whether you like or dislike Nawaz Sharif or Benazir, both of them should be free to return to this country and allowed to face any charges against them. It is the people of Pakistan who should decide who they want to elect as their representatives and not some army generals who decide our fate in the name of national security. We want Pakistan to be a Social Welfare State and which was the dream of its founding fathers and NOT a National Security State which, unfortunately, it has become now.
As Adnan Siddiqi rightly pointed out in his blog post, there is a sad and brutal side of this story too. Nawaz Sharif landed, arrested and deported. Musharraf stayed in his office while Nawaz either stayed in plane or in lounge then forced to go back to Saudia. All were having fun time. Who suffered then?See yourself?
May Allah have mercy on Pakistan and its 160 million citizens and give our rulers wisdom to make the right decisions. Ameen.
There is a reason why we are still a developing country…there is a reason why our economy is still trying to take off…there is a reason why our leaders are so corrupt and those in power abuse power to its maximum…that reason is the people of Pakistan…if as a nation we are willing to sit back and go on accepting this corruption, this abuse of power, then invariably the system will remain messed up…
@Saleem
I agree with u
AM:
“Should have been clearer about what I thought was ?irresponsible? in your comments. The ?civilian? part. The people fighting the army in FATA are not civilians, and neither were those who were killed in the Lal Masjid.”
There is a list of over 100 civilians – yes blxxdy civilians who have been picked up from across Pakistan by intelligence agencies without any court notice and are reportedly under miserable conditions; there are lots of Guantanamo’s existing within Pakistan (please follow the missing persons cases in proceeding with Supreme Court of Pakistan currently).
Second, why are we killing our own brethren (whether aggressive or militant) when being pushed by the US, whereas the western society itself believes in dialog within their own social setup? There are better ways to deal with such situations which the army “cannot” think of – they simply cannot because they are not trained as such!
Army is trained to show “punches” to the enemies. Our bad luck is that the sitting general(s) consider the tribes in Balochistan (remember Bugti, the one who arranged Balochistan’s vote for Pakistan along with Qazi Isa), the tribes in Wana and Waziristan, the parliament, the Lal Masjid group, the 12th May protesters in Karachi, Nawaz Sahrif, (until a year back Benazir) and every one who does not agree with them as enemies. Here is the flaw; this is not the way a “society” runs but probably how a battalion should be controlled.
We need to understand that “army” is trained to “get its goal.” They learn that everything in fair in “war”; so they act in a similar way. The unfortunate part is this mentality has been seeping down into the society from the top over the past many years. Even the civilian leaders follow the same approach when given power.
How our thinking process is being changed by successive army regimes (and thus making us more violent) is beyond imagination. If the person(s) at the top try to get “their” goals – whether right or wrong – by force and by lying, everyone in the society will follow the same pattern. That is how our thinking has changed. We behave in the society in similar pattern thus leading to violence.
The result – We, as a nation, do not believe in dialog and do not let any one else leave the discussion table until s/he is in our camp. This is not a complaint but an attempt to throw light on how martial laws and army regimes change the society’s mindset.
Army should do the job they are trained to – “jiska kaam usi ko sajhay.” Only successive social and democratic screening could bail us out – but the way to achieve it is education and awareness. Our focus should be to try and force a process where we start getting strong social and political leadership which has not developed in the past sixty years (over half of which was under army rule though)
Sidenote: ?War is too serious a matter to be left to the generals? ? Winston Churchill
Does that mean that even war (for which the army is trained) should be handled by statesmen and not generals? :)
Musharaf has done this clearly with the support of Khadam-e-Harmain-e-Shareefain and we should respect this action or the impression would be that custodian of Haram Shareef is not a trustworthy person.
And he the fool who is willing to sacrifice his or her life for the benefit of those two, and thier associates. She wants people to come out and fight for her all the while she kept away because of the corruption charges levelled against her. pakistani people are a laughing stock ,have they forgotten the swiss authorities convicted her for money laundering, if she returns it is a disgrace for pakistan has a whole.