No restrictions on Nawaz, sons to come to Pakistan for Begum Shamim's funeral: PTI minister

Information Minister Shibli Faraz on Tuesday said there were no restrictions in place on former premier Nawaz Sharif, his sons and former finance minister Ishaq Dar to come to Pakistan to attend the funeral of Sharif's mother.

This comes days after Pakistan Muslim Leauge-Nawaz Vice-President Maryam Nawaz lambasted the Imran Khan-led government for being inconsiderate when her grandmother passed away.

Begum Shamim Akhtar, the mother of Nawaz and Shehbaz, passed away in London on November 22. She was in her 90s and had been unwell for a month, Dawn reported. Arrangements have been made to bring her body back to Lahore for burial next to the grave of her husband.

"They are welcome to come to Pakistan and attend the funeral," Faraz said in a tweet on Tuesday and added that the opposition tried to politicise the matter.

He wrote further, "The narrative of state suppression is deliberate propaganda and an attempt to politicise this issue. Who are you trying to fool?"

On Monday, PML-N had sought at least a two-week parole for the party president Shehbaz and his son Hamza to participate in the last rites of Begum Shamim. Both of them are in prison in a money laundering and assets beyond means case.

Dawn reported that Nawaz and Shehbaz could not attend the last rites of their father back in October 2004 as they were in exile in Jeddah and had rejected a conditional offer by then military dictator Pervez Musharraf.

Maryam, Nawaz's daughter had urged her father to stay back in London until the treatment is completed.

"I have requested Mian Saheb that he must not return. They are cruel people blind by vendetta from whom no humanity could be expected," she said in a tweet after receiving news of her grandmother's passing, as quoted by Dawn.

According to Geo News, she accused the PTI government of lacking humanity when her grandmother passed away. "My father and family kept trying to contact me but could not," she said, "no government official was humane enough to inform me of my grandmother's death."

(ANI)

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