RAWALPINDI, June 6: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz would soon launch a two-pronged legal battle against the government for the return of Sharif family.

This was stated by the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy acting parliamentary leader, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, while speaking at a 'Meet the Press' programme at the Rawalpindi Press Club.

The ARD leader said a decision had been taken in this regard and it would be implemented shortly. He said in the first case, the PML-N would challenge the deportation of its president, Mian Shahbaz Sharif, who had last month tried to return to the country in a bid to end his exile. The PML-N believes that the deportation was contempt of court and secondly it was a subversion of the Constitution, he added.

In the second case, he said, the PML-N would seek a clear permission and direction from the Apex Court for the return of Shahbaz Sharif's family, who were presently based in Dubai.

Mr Khan said the party's lawyers would be contesting the second case on the premise that the women of Shahbaz Sharif's family were apolitical and had to return to the country for family reasons.

He claimed that the exile of Sharif family was the need of the government as it had failed to get a death sentence against Mian Nawaz Sharif and implicate the members of Sharif family in cases of corruption.

The PML-N leader said the Sharif family would return as soon as they got permission from the court. He said the recent episode of Shahbaz Sharif's deportation had not ended the story, rather it encouraged the Sharifs, who were now more determined and ambitious to return to their motherland.

Speaking about the problems confronting Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, he said opposition parties would fully support the premier if he ever faced any conspiracy or at any stage the prime minister tried to assert his constitutional powers.

This assurance is despite the fact the opposition parties feel that Mr Jamali has caused irreparable damage to the country's political system and the office of prime minister by making himself subservient to the president and others, he added.

The government, he alleged, was trying to divide the opposition. But the PML-N is making all-out efforts to foil the government's designs and to keep the opposition intact, he added.

Mr Khan said the opposition was trying to take the country out of the darkness. However, the masses and the judiciary are the two forces that can play a decisive role in this regard.

Nevertheless, things are moving towards the defining moment time isn't far when the government would fall victim to its own trappings, he added.

He said nomination of Fazlur Rehman as the opposition leader in the national assembly never came as a surprise, adding that "in a country where a person with a single vote majority can become prime minister and a person with no vote can become a president then why can't a person with minority in the opposition cannot become the opposition leader."

Gen Pervez Musharraf's source of power, he said, was not the people of the country, rather he was relying on outside powers to keep himself in power. He said there was no difference between Pakistan's government and the recently-installed puppet government in Iraq.

Mr Khan advised the United States that if they wanted to maintain longstanding and effective relations with Pakistan, then instead of strengthening their ties with a single person (Gen Musharraf), they should develop contacts with the masses.