LAHORE, May 30: Former prime minister Mian Nawaz Sharif launched the severest ever attack on President Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday, and said the general would be taught a lesson for subverting the Constitution, overthrowing an elected government and bringing destruction to the country.

In a telephonic address to a women workers’ convention, he said the general was unable to run the country. In fact, he said, the general could lead the country to another tragedy.

Provincial party president Sirdar Zulfikar Ali Khosa presided over the convention attended and addressed by many other leaders.

Musharraf had overthrown the PML-N-government on Oct 12, 1999, when Mr Sharif, as prime minister, sacked him as army chief. Subsequently, he banished the Sharif family to Saudi Arabia where they stayed for five years before moving to London on Jan 29. On Monday, the former prime minister and his wife Kulsoom reached on a week’s private visit to UAE.

Mr Sharif urged the people to stand up against what he called dictatorship which had pushed the country to destruction. He apprehended another tragedy for the country in case the dictators continued to occupy the driving seat.

The former prime minister recalled how he was overthrown, arrested and handcuffed against the provisions of the Constitution. He also made a mention of how the elected president was thrown out of the presidency.

“Was the army set up to topple governments?” the deposed prime minister asked, warning that the nation would hold such people to account.

He held some generals responsible for throwing the country into the crises. He alleged that the generals had handed over Siachen to India and endangered the sovereignty of the country.

Rejecting all policies being followed by the present rulers, Mr Sharif said those in power were trying to please their foreign masters.

He criticized the Kashmir policy, the privatization of the Pakistan Steel Mills, and the rampant corruption.

Begum Kulsoom called upon the women to play their role in pulling down the dictatorial system. She said the existing system was like a sand wall which would come down with a single push.

The participants, through resolutions, demanded that the exiled leaders should be allowed to come back and the arrested leaders set free.