LAHORE, March 3: PML-N president Mian Shahbaz Sharif says Pakistan has the legal right to take steps to bolster its defence, safeguard its national interests and assets to ward off threats from enemy.

According to a party press release, the former Punjab chief minister stated this at a public meeting in London. Mr Sharif warned that in the absence of national unity at this crucial juncture, the country would plunge in a quagmire and would never be able to come out of it.

He said it was tragic that national heroes had been zeroed. He said Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan was called corrupt while those who had got loans of billions of rupees written off had been installed in power.

Mian Shahbaz Sharif asked the rulers as to where their seven-point agenda had gone. Also, he said, they should let the nation know about their claims of economic progress, justice and law and order.

He said Mian Nawaz Sharif had resisted all foreign pressures and rejected economic baits for the sake of national dignity. But, he regretted, the "commando leadership" fell flat on a single phone call from a foreign country. He reiterated that he would return home soon and advised his party men not to set dates for his return.