Nation special report
LONDON: Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family would be highly thankful to lockdown restrictions as they are now saved from paparazzi photographers and waiting Pakistani journalists outside their flat at Park Lane in central London.
But what one can say to fame of former Pakistani premier that he was not spared on Saturday and caught in camera enjoying a cup of tea with family ladies outside a coffee shop near his son Hassan Nawaz’s office at Marble Arch and just walking distance from his residence worth of millions of Pounds.
Picture that went viral in Pakistan and Britain shows Nawaz Sharif, who flew to London last year for medical treatment, enjoying tea with his granddaughter and two other family ladies at the corridor of a coffee shop. He looks better but in deep thoughts about future that can be seen and felt from his face.
This is reportedly the first time that the PML-N supremo has left his apartment to go out in public after the Covid-19 outbreak hit London.
Before spreading pandemic, Pakistani journalists and photographers used to wait outside the gate of Nawaz Sharif’s flat to have a glimpse and to talk to him for a ‘breaking news’ which is very popular trend in Pakistani electronic and print media.
There were no comments from Nawaz Sharif himself but commenting on the London picture, his daughter Maryam Nawaz in Pakistan observed that the purpose of uploading the snapshot was defamation and not promotion.
Expressing her resentment, she said it was not a big deal to take the picture of Nawaz along with his female family members “secretively” for those who could forcefully get into the intensive care unit and attempt to take the pictures of her faint mother. In June 2018, a man entered late Begum Kulsoom Nawaz’s hospital room allegedly without permission at London’s Harley Street Clinic where she was being treated. The act sparked alarm among members of the Sharif family.
Commenting further on Nawaz’s latest picture, Maryam questioned if the click was such a good act, why was it done in a cowardly manner. The PML-N vice-president maintained that the way the glimpse of Nawaz had startled his opponents, it had become a source of happiness and encouragement for his supporters. Maryam declared that Nawaz’s adversaries only harmed themselves by such acts and unknowingly benefitted her father.
Earlier, commenting on the latest image of Nawaz Sharif, Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry said how the people [in Pakistan] could trust the accountability system. In a tweet posted on Saturday, he said these images were making a mockery of the country’s justice system, law, administration, and judicial system.
Prime Minister’s Special Assistant Dr Shehbaz Gill, said, “These people consider the nation as fool. He left for London with a false statement. The three-time prime minister lacks moral strength; they flee from the country on the basis of falsehood. Those people are pitiable who still hear their false utterances and consider them their leaders.”
According to media reports, Nawaz’s doctors had advised the family to keep him in self- isolation in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.
Meanwhile, Nawaz Sharif’s personal physician Dr Adnan along with Mayam Nawaz’s daughter on Saturday boarded a flight to Pakistan at Heathrow Airport. He refused to discuss Nawaz Sharif’s medical progress at the airport. He said that his journey to Pakistan was temporary and he would return to London and tend to his patient Nawaz Sharif soon.