Bilawal will visit Kot Lakhpat jail to meet Sharif, says Khokhar

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal is set to visit Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore on Monday to meet former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, presently serving sevenyear sentence.

Bilawal’s spokesman Senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar said the only purpose of the visit to the jail is to inquire about the health of the ailing supreme leader of the main opposition party Pakistan Muslim Leaguenawaz (PML-N).

Khokhar said the PPP was concerned over reports that the Pakistan Tehrik-e-insaf (PTI) led Punjab government was not providing required medical facilities to Sharif who was facing multiple health problems including some cardiac issues.

Besides Khokhar, PPP Punjab president Qamar Zaman Kaira and Jameel Soomro, political secretary to Bilawal, will accompany the party chairman to the Kot Lakhpat jail.

This will be for the first time that the leaders of the PPP and the PML-N, the two arch-rivals of the past, will be having a meeting in jail.

Bilawal with his father Asif Ali Zardari and other senior party leaders had previously visited the Sharifs’ residence at Jati Umra in September last year to offer their condolences over the demise of Begum Kulsoom. Terming her death a “great loss,” Zardari had said the PPP stood by the Sharif family and the PML-N in these difficult times.

Sharif, who had been released on a parole to atend his wife’s last rites, had thanked the PPP leadership for visiting him, recalling that a delegation from the party had also atended Kulsoom’s funeral.

Kaira had last week writen a leter to the home secretary seeking permission for a meeting between Bilawal and Sharif in the jail with a three-member party delegation.

PML-N spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb praised the young PPP chairman for his decision to meet Sharif in the jail.

“I think it is a very good gesture on part of Bilawal and it shows political maturity,” she said.