Red carpet or a walk on fire: PM Nawaz returns home today

• Special PIA aircraft to bring PM, first lady and camp office back to Pakistan; PIA says the flight won’t be that expensive; says other passengers won’t face problems due to PM’s dedicated flight
• Imran draws first blood, tells PM to ‘have some shame’ for spending an extravagant sum hiring a 777 aircraft for his flight home

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is set to return to Pakistan on Saturday (today) after a 48-day absence from the country due to his heart surgery which was performed on May 31.

In a further indication that the opposition, which, on a number of occasions in the past month accused the PM of absenteeism and truancy, is not going to give any quarter to the still-convalescing Sharif, Imran Khan on Friday told PM to ‘have some shame’ after news broke out that a special flight of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) will be dispatched to bring the prime minister, the first lady and the PM’s camp office back home.

The PIA, in turn clarified: “On PIA’s regular flights, so many seats are not available, due to which the only option was to depute a dedicated aircraft.” A spokesman for the PIA further said: “Due to the prime minister’s health issues, PM’s office had partly been shifted to London where a camp office had been set up.”

“Now that the PM has recovered after his surgery and is allowed to travel, the whole camp office has to be shifted back to Pakistan,” the statement continued.

The PIA spokesperson had earlier said that a special aircraft is being sent to London for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s return to Pakistan on Saturday (today), following his recovery.

In a message on Twitter, Sharif’s daughter, Maryam Nawaz, confirmed that the prime minister will return to Pakistan on Saturday evening.

“Prime Minister will Insha’Allah be arriving tomorrow evening. Allah has been Kind. Indebted for your kind prayers and wishes,” a tweet from the premier’s daughter said.

But while many who responded to the tweet expressed good wishes for the prime minister and welcomed his return, others ragged on the PM’s daughter for what they said would be an extravagant amount of money spent on the trip home.

PM Nawaz has been in London since the end of May recuperating from an open-heart surgery.

‘NOT SO EXPENSIVE’:

Various figures were quoted in the media as the amount of money that will be spent on the PM’s dedicated flight home. The figures cited an amount as high as $3 million for the flight.

A statement from the PIA, however, said the amount was ‘not that high’. Without giving an exact number, the Airline said the expense was reasonable.

The PIA also said that alternative arrangements have been made for other flights and that the PIA passengers would not have face any inconvenience due to the PM’s flight.

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman, meanwhile, lambasted the rulers for hiring a special aircraft to bring the PM back to the country.

“Do you know how much a 777 aircraft flying to London to bring back emperor Nawaz Sharif will cost this nation?” Imran asked before chanting “have some shame Nawaz Sharif”.

“We will go to the court on Monday and demand action on the aircraft being sent to London to bring back the premier and his family,” Imran said while addressing his supporters in Punjab’s Pasrur city.

PM’S FAMILY FLIES TO LONDON:

Earlier, immediate family members of PM Nawaz also flew to London to celebrate Eidul Fitr with him. While PM Nawaz has consistently spent the last 10 days of Ramzan away from home, in Saudi Arabia, over the past few years, this was by some distance the longest he has been away from home during any of his stints in office.

Separately, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi telephoned PM Nawaz on Wednesday, the occasion of Eid, to wish him a speedy recovery from surgery. While relations between the two countries have been rocky in the recent past, it appears the two men continue to enjoy good rapport with each other.

PM’S SURGERY:

Local media reports had earlier claimed the prime minister is scheduled to return to Pakistan on July 9 after doctors had given him the go-ahead.

PM Nawaz underwent open-heart surgery at a London hospital on May 31.

The need for the surgery arose after the premier went through a cardiac procedure called Atrial Fibrillation Ablation in 2011 “during which certain complications occurred resulting in perforation of heart”, Maryam Nawaz earlier told the media.

Many had called it a politically prudent decision to leave the country at a time when opposition parties were exerting pressure on the government in the wake of the Panama Leaks.

OPPOSITION TO KEEP THE PANAMA PAPERS ISSUE ALIVE:

PTI Secretary General Jahangir Khan Tareen last week said the party’s preparations for launching a “massive protest movement” over the Panama Leaks soon after Eidul Fitr were in full swing.

Government and opposition leaders had agreed on May 18 to form a 12-member parliamentary committee — including six members each from both sides — to draft the Terms of Reference (TORs) for the proposed commission to be headed by the chief justice of Pakistan for holding an inquiry against those owning offshore companies as revealed by the Panama Papers leaks.

Both the government and the opposition parties had agreed that besides concentrating on the individuals named in the Panama Papers, the committee will also go after those who received kickbacks and commissions, as well as those who had their loans written off illegally.

On May 31, the committee ended its fourth meeting without even discussing the issue.

According to independent observers, the committee may not reach consensus because both sides are poles apart as far as their expectations are concerned.

An investigation published April 3 by an international coalition of more than 100 media outlets ─ based on 11.5 million records and 2.6 terabytes of information drawn from the internal database of Panamaian law firm Mossack Fonseca ─ details how politicians, celebrities and other famous people use banks, law firms and offshore shell companies to hide their assets.

According to documents available on the ICIJ website, the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s children Maryam, Hasan and Hussain “were owners or had the right to authorise transactions for several companies”.

The data leak revealed the financial wheelings and dealings of over 200 Pakistanis, including the late Benazir Bhutto, Rehman Malik and other prominent politicians and businessmen.