LAHORE: Funeral prayers for the mother of PML-N leaders Nawaz Sharif and Shehbaz Sharif will be offered on Saturday at the Sharif Medical City, Raiwind.

“Funeral prayers of Begum Shamim Akhtar will be held after Zohar prayers on Nov 28 (Saturday) at the Sharif Medical City, Raiwind,” PML-N information secretary Marriyum Aurangzeb said on Wednesday.

She said the Qul would be held on Nov 29 which would be attended only by members of the Sharif family.

PML-N Quaid Nawaz Sharif and president Shehbaz Sharif have appealed to the people and workers to offer Fateha for their mother on the day of Qul in their respective areas.

Begum Akhtar breathed her last in London on Sunday last and her dead body will be brought back on Friday.

Talking to reporters at Raiwind, Ms Aurangzeb said Shehbaz Sharif could not be released on parole even after three days of the death of his beloved mother.

“The PTI government has shown that [such] a vicious, tyrannical, fascist and inhuman regime has ever come to power,” she said and added Shehbaz was imprisoned in a case that did not allege a single penny of corruption of public money, but under the [charges of ]assets beyond means and gifts that he received from his family.

“The president of the largest political party of the country and the opposition leader of the august parliament of this country is being mentally tortured for crimes he did not commit at a time when he is grieving the death of his mother,” she said.

She alleged that Shehbaz’s right to be released on parole had been intentionally blocked by creating legal complications.

“Conditioning his release on parole with the date and time of the arrival of his mother’s dead body was extreme apathy, vulgar prejudice and vengefulness which shows how low this imposed regime of selected Imran can stoop to.”

The Punjab cabinet has approved the release of PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif and his son Hamza Shehbaz on a five-day parole to participate in the last rites of his (Shehbaz’s) mother. Both leaders will be released upon arrival of the dead body of Begum Akhtar here.

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2020