PTI-PMLN exchange barbs over Nawaz Sharif’s new picture from London

LONDON: Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been spotted enjoying tea with family members outside his son’s office near Hyde Park after over two months of isolation following the COVID-19 lockdown.

The photo, seen circulating on social media, shows the PML-N supremo having tea with his grandchildren in the garden of Hasan Nawaz Sharif’s Hyde Park Place office.

This is the first time that the PML-N leader has left his apartment to go out in public after the coronavirus outbreak hit London, a source in the Sharif family said.

According to the source, Sharif took a walk from Park Lane flats to the office — ten minutes away.

As soon as the photo circulated on the media, a war of words broke out between PML-N leaders and PTI ministers and advisors.

Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry said how could Pakistanis trust the accountability system. He said that such photos make a mockery of the country’s justice system, law, administration, and judicial system.

Prime Minister’s Special Assistant Dr Shehbaz Gill, taking to Twitter, said: “These people consider the nation as fool. He left for London with a false statement. The three-time prime minister lacks moral strength; they flee from the country on the basis of falsehood. Those people are pitiable who still hear their false utterances and consider them their leaders.”

Gill said that the public and the institutions were told lies. The level of morality is that at first, they try to hide their lies then brag about them, he added.

Maryam Nawaz Sharif broke her silence after a long time and responded to critics.

The PML-N Vice President and daughter of the elder Sharif said that her father’s picture on social media was not meant for publicity but aimed at humiliating him and like every time the plan failed.

Maryam said that those who could "force their way into the ICU" and try to take pictures of her unconscious mother, they can take pictures of ladies and children of Nawaz Sharif’s family. “If it was such a good deed, then why did you hide like a coward?” she asked the anonymous person who first took the picture.

Sharif’s family sources have said that doctors had advised the family to keep him in isolation in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak due to his advanced age.

Earlier in January, a storm started in Pakistani politics after a picture of the former premier came out in which he was seen having dinner at an Arab restaurant.

The then SAPM on information and broadcasting Firdous Ashiq Awan had announced that British govt will be asked to send Sharif back through a letter but nothing happened after that.