ISLAMABAD: Amid Pakistan’s fractious politics that has seen fierce government-opposition conflict and efforts to upend each other, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s self-exiled son Suleman Shehbaz returned from the United Kingdom on Sunday after four years, as the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) decided to mobilise its workers by holding conventions across the country before next general elections.

The PM’s son landed at the federal capital in the wee hours of Sunday and instead of coming out of the Islamabad airport flew to Lahore in a private jet, sources in Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) told Dawn.

It is expected Suleman, who is wanted by National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in multiple cases including a case of assets beyond means, would file a bail application in an accountability court on Monday. Hours before his arrival, incumbent interior minister and senior PML-N leader Rana Sanaullah was acquitted in a drug smuggling case.

After reaching Lahore, Suleman went straight to meet his father (the prime minister). He touched his knees as a gesture of respect before giving him a hug, while the PM put a garland on him, a video clip posted on PML-N’s official Twitter account showed.

Suleman is expected to apply for bail in multiple cases today

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister Attaullah Tarar is also visible in the clip. Sharing the same video on his Twitter handle, the PM’s aide captioned it: “Allahu Akbar, Alhumdulillah, SulemanSharif is back!”

The PM’s son, in a statement issued before his return, said he was forced to leave Pakistan for the sake of his safety after ‘fake and manipulated cases’ were registered against him and his family in order to ‘facilitate a new political order’.

Terming the cases the ‘worst example of political witch-hunt and political victimisation’, he claimed they were “cooked up by the National Accountability Bureau under former NAB chairman Javed Iqbal and the Assets Recovery Unit”.

He returned days after the Islamabad High Court on his plea seeking protective bail to enable him to surrender before a trial court had barred both FIA and NAB from arresting him in the assets beyond means reference.

Suleman had been in London with his family for past four years. He had left Pakistan after attending a few court hearings in NAB cases, which had been registered against him before the 2018 general elections.

In June 2020, media reports said the anti-graft watchdog had seized Suleman’s shares worth Rs2bn in as many as 16 companies along with Rs4.1m held in three bank accounts as well as over 26 acres of land. The bureau had then alleged that assets worth Rs3.3bn had been illegally accumulated by Suleman, his brother Hamza Shehbaz and their father Shehbaz Sharif.

According to an FIA report submitted to the court in December last year, an investigation team detected 28 benamidar accounts of the Shehbaz family through which money laundering of Rs16.3bn was committed from 2008 to 2018. The FIA examined a money trail of 17,000 credit transactions.

While his arrest warrants were issued on May 28, the FIA told the court they could not be executed as Suleman had gone abroad. Also, the NAB had written a letter to the UK government to seek the custody of Suleman, who was wanted by the bureau for money laundering charges and the Telegraphic Transfer scandal.

PML-N conventions

On Sunday, Prime Minister Sharif decided to mobilise party workers by holding PML-N workers’ conventions across the country in phases this week, starting from Rawalpindi and Sialkot on Dec 11.

They will be followed by party workers’ conventions in Islamabad, Lahore, Sheikhupura, Qasur and Faisalabad to be held on a daily basis from Dec 13 to 17.

According to PML-N sources, the premier has also directed party’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa chapter president Amir Muqam to hold workers’ conventions in Shergarh and Mardan.

The party will announce schedule of a second phase of workers’ conventions later.

Sources in the PML-N said the conventions were part of the ruling party’s preparation for the next general elections, scheduled to be held in October 2023.

The political mobilisation by the PML-N has been planned at a time when the main opposition Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf has been demanding that the government immediately announce a snap polls date, not beyond March 2023, or else it will dissolve the assemblies of Punjab and KP where it rules.

Published in Dawn, December 12th, 2022