FAISALABAD: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain on Monday said PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif was both legally and morally bound to bring his elder brother Nawaz Sharif back to the country as per his commitment given in the court.

Nawaz Sharif was allowed to go abroad for treatment after Shehbaz Sharif submitted an affidavit in the court that he would bring his brother back in case the former did not return, the minister said while talking to the media here after condoling with Omer Nazar Shah, chairman of Aspire Group of Colleges, over his mother’s death.

Flanked by Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Farrukh Habib, Mr Fawad said they had no personal enmity with Nawaz Sharif, who should better return home on his own and face cases pending in courts against him.

He said the Sharif family did not have any evidence to prove the legitimate purchase of apartments owned by them in London. The public had every right to ask them to give details of properties bought by them through ill-gotten money, he added. Fawad said the ‘march’ planned by Maulana Fazlur Rehman posed no threat to the government. The Maulana had launched a march on Islamabad in the first year of the present government, but failed to derail it, he recalled.

The minister extended an olive branch to the opposition parties and urged them to cooperate with the government for reforming the system.

He ruled out the possibility of giving any relief to those facing corruption cases. The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government would continue to implement its accountability agenda as its voters wanted the corrupt behind bars.

The people, he said, were not satisfied with the accountability process as the plunderers like Nawaz Sharif, Shehbaz Sharif and Asif Zardari had not yet returned the looted public money.

Published in Dawn, January 4th, 2022