Pak govt to lobby UK for Sharif's deportation

Islamabad: The incumbent Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government has decided to seek the deportation of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from London, where he is undergoing treatment, a media report said on Monday.

"Government departments concerned will start the process of writing a letter to the UK from the coming week," Dawn news quoted Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information and Broadcasting Firdous Ashiq Awan as saying on Sunday.

Casting doubts on the former premier's illness, Awan said neither did he undergo any heart surgery nor was he admitted to hospital for any emergency during the last three months.

"It is time to bring back the VIP prisoner who is having a lavish stay abroad," she added.

Meanwhile, the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has said that Sharif will move the Lahore High Court against the Punjab province government's refusal to grant him extension in his stay abroad for treatment.

PML-N's Punjab information secretary Azma Bokhari told Dawn news on Sunday: "We have received the written order of the PTI's Punjab government regarding its refusal to grant extension in the stay of Nawaz Sharif abroad on flimsy grounds.

"The PML-N supremo will challenge the decision in the LHC this week."

Last week, the Punjab government had refused to extend Sharif's bail declaring that it had found no "legal, moral or medical ground" necessitating an extension.

Last year, the LHC had granted Sharif bail in the Chaudhry Sugar Mills corruption case in which he was a suspect.

Later, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) accepted his bail plea in the Al Azizia Mills corruption reference in which he was serving a seven-year jail term, clearing his way to travel abroad for medical treatment.