Pak declares former PM Sharif absconder
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has been declared an “absconder” by the government for violating the bail requirements by not presenting his medical report from his doctors in London.
Basharat Raja, law minister of Punjab has said the province’s cabinet had decided not to give further extension to his bail.
Basharat said Sharif was granted bail for eight weeks by the Islamabad High Court in October but a further eight weeks had passed since then, adding that the bail was to be automatically extended till a decision by the Punjab government. After passage of 16 weeks, the provincial government wanted to be informed regarding Nawaz’s health on the basis of which a decision regarding his bail was to be made. But no such information was provided.
He said Nawaz was not admitted to any hospital in London. Nothing specific was shared with the government regarding Nawaz Sharif’s health, he added.
He said the Punjab cabinet had made the decision, as there was no legal, moral or medical basis without any concrete proof for further extension of his bail.
Sharif, 70, left for London in November last for treatment after the Lahore High Court allowed him to go abroad on medical grounds for four weeks.
According to Sharif’s physician, the three-time prime minister is suffering from coronary artery disease.
GUNMEN KILL SCRIBE
Pakistani journalist Javedullah Khan, who was also a local leader of the PML-N party and member of a local peace committee, was shot dead on Tuesday.
Khan, 36, was the bureau chief of Urdu-language daily Ausaf (Islamabad) in Swat.
He was going to his farm in his car when some unidentified assailants opened fire at his vehicle, leaving him seriously wounded in the Shakardara area of tehsil Matta, a former Taliban stronghold some 40-kilometres northwest of Swat valley.
He was rushed to a hospital where he died during treatment, police said. A police guard of the journalist who was with him in the car remained unhurt.
Some of Khan’s relatives were members of an anti-Taliban group.
“Javed was travelling with a police guard when two gunmen opened fire on his vehicle,” senior police official Muhammad Ijaz Khan told AFP.