LAHORE, Feb 2: The Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan (Nifaz-i-Shariat) has expressed reservations about PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif’s US visit.

“The United States wants to impose Shahbaz Sharif over country’s politics to check increasing popularity of religious forces,” JUP-NS president Engineer Saleemullah Khan told a press conference here on Sunday.

Washington wanted to use Pakistan against Iraq and Mr Sharif was being sent back to his homeland through New York to crush Pakistanis’ support for Baghdad.

Mr Sharif had in Oct 1999 visited America as a ‘special guest’ of the CIA and the FBI when he was the Punjab chief minister and had returned with the plot to take action against 17 army officers, Saleemullah said.

But the plan backfired and resultantly Nawaz Sharif had to lose his rule, he added.

He reminded the people that on his return on Oct 3, 1999, Shahbaz Sharif had also declared Taliban as terrorists.

Mr Khan did not believe that the PML-N president was in the US to get some medical treatment. He said Shahbaz Sharif had been in Britain for two years for the treatment of his so-called backache during the Tehrik-i-Nijat but he had contracted another marriage there and returned Pakistan only to be appointed as the Punjab chief minister.

He was also apprehensive about the timing of US general Tommy Franks visit to Pakistan and simultaneous presence of Shahbaz Sharif and Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri in the United States.

Condemning Gen Pervez Musharraf, PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto and Shahbaz Sharif for striking clandestine deals with Washington and introducing horsetrading to come into power, he demanded restoration of 1973 Constitution and holding of fair and transparent elections afresh.

He also supported demands of the all parties conference held in the city on Jan 31.