Deposed prime minister and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo Nawaz Sharif has claimed that the nation was happy and satisfied during his tenure more than they were during the aborted tenure of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan’s tenure.
Speaking to the media in London in the first detailed interview since his brother Shehbaz Sharif took over as prime minister, the PML-N supremo said, “ Everything became expensive during Imran Khan’s tenure while people were happy and satisfied during his tenure.“
Nawaz said Imran Khan had done everything to exact revenge from him but he also ruined Pakistan’s economy and sovereignty.
“If you wanted to to exact revenge against me, fine, but why did you have to go and exact revenge on Pakistan?” he asked.
Nawaz suggested that he was even offered money but he refused it.
“At least $5 billion were being offered on a plate, but we said absolutely not,” he said with the context not immediately clear.
Remembering his mother, Nawaz shared that his mother liked him best and younger brother Shehbaz often complained about it.
“She used to visit Rawalpindi jail to meet me and when she died I was sitting beside her,” he added.
He expressed happiness and gratitude as well that his daughter Maryam Nawaz had arrived in London.
Nawaz appreciated how she remained brave and steadfast during the toughest of times.
Recalling one incident of revenge exacted by Imran, Nawaz claimed that when his wife was on her deathbed and was incarcerated in prison but he was not allowed to speak to her.
“I pleaded with the warden to let me speak to my wife as she does not have long,” Nawaz said, adding that the to even prove one is sick they had to die first.
“Three hours later, they came in and informed me that my wife had passed,” Nawaz recalled, adding that he forbid the jail officials from informing Maryam, who was also being held in the same jail.
Instead, Nawaz said that he told officials that he would personally inform his daughter about her mother’s passing.
“When I informed her she went into shock. After a while she started crying incessantly after feeling the sting of the irreparable loss,” he said.
Nawaz criticized the politicking and undue criticism he faced when his wife Kulsoom Nawaz was in hospital.
“People were trivialising the situation,” he said, lamenting how many said that Kulsoom’s sickness was all a drama.
Despite the fact that his wife was in critical health, a National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) judge sentenced him to 10 years in jail and Maryam Nawaz to seven years.
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“And then, they would not even allow us to go visit her.”
“Following the verdict, I urged Maryam that we should now go to Pakistan. Maryam told me that her mother’s condition was deteriorating. But in response, I told her that there are some national responsibilities that we must attend to,” he stated.
The PML-N supremo explained that upon their arrival in Pakistan, what happened was for everyone to see.
When he was sent to jail, Maryam would often come to visit him.
During one such visit, she informed him that NAB personnel were waiting outside the Kot Lakhpat Jail to arrest her.
“They then arrested Maryam in front of me and her younger daughter. The only purpose of this arrest was to hurt me. There was no other reason for it. They must’ve planned to arrest Maryam right in front of her father,” Nawaz said.
He said that “Maryam Nawaz proved that the case was false and the sentence was wrong, why did we have to go to jail in false cases? As a Pakistani, I have the right to ask this question.”
Later in the interview, he lashed out at Imran, saying during the PTI chief’s tenure, such acts had been committed which had “acts never been committed before”.
Asked about the recent audio leaks, Nawaz said that it was gradually exposing the true face of the tyrant.
He added that in the upcoming days, further facts are expected to come to light.