LONDON, Sept 9: Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif is expected to reach Islamabad on Monday morning at 11.50am from London via Muscat, anticipating a historic welcome from his admirers and party workers and at the same time expecting the worst from the government.

“We expect the government to use all the firepower in its administrative armoury to forestall Mr Sharif’s plans to pose a challenge to Musharraf’s power on the streets,” said one of the confidantes accompanying Mr Nawaz.

Sources in the PML-N said they were confident the government would not dare violate the instructions contained in the Supreme Court ruling barring the administration from putting any hurdles in the way of the Sharif brothers’ entry into Pakistan.

Nawaz Sharif left here from Heathrow airport by a PIA flight around midnight Pakistan time in defiance of warnings by the government and disregarding counsel from Saudi Arabia and Lebanese politician Saad Hariri.

It was earlier announced that Mr Nawaz would travel by a Gulf Air flight, but at the last minute opted for PIA. Sources in the party said Nawaz Sharif believed the Supreme Court ruling allowing his return applied to the PIA. If the government tried to interfere with the PIA flight, it would be violating the ruling and committing contempt.

The Saudi government and Mr Hariri, the guarantors of the exile undertaking the PML chief had signed before being released from jail and sent to Saudi Arabia in Dec 2000, had on Saturday advised him at a press conference in Islamabad not to violate the undertaking.

Nawaz Sharif rejected their advice in a tit-for-tat press conference at London on the same day, saying that Mr Hariri had not kept his promise to revise the exile period down to five years _ a promise which he said he had obtained from Mr Hariri before signing the undertaking.

About 60 media persons and nearly 40 party leaders as well as Lord Nazir, a British MP of Pakistan origin, PPP leader Mustafa Khar and Ishaq Dar of the PML-N also left London along with Nawaz Sharif.

A fairly good crowd of local PML leaders and workers were at the Heathrow to see off their leader. Local and Pakistani media were also present in good strength to cover the departure.

The PML sources said they expect their lawyers in Islamabad to obtain an omnibus bail-before-arrest for Nawaz Sharif on Monday morning, if necessary.

Mr Sharif had said on a number of occasions after he decided to go back home that he was not afraid of being arrested on landing, presumably in the hope that the courts in their present assertive mood may not let the government harass him with ‘concocted cases’.

Mr Sharif is expecting the APDM to convene a meeting immediately after his return to Lahore at which the alliance is expected to chalk out its plans to mobilise the public against President Musharraf’s plans to get himself re-elected in uniform from the present assemblies.

Shahbaz Sharif is not coming to Pakistan as scheduled because Nawaz Sharif advised him at the last minute to stay back, according to party sources.