Ahead of Nawaz Sharif's return, picture of ex-Pakistan PM with ailing wife Begum Kulsoom goes viral

The viral picture shows Maryam breaking down into tears and Nawaz keeping his hands on wife Kulsoom's head.

LONDON: Ahead of Pakistan's graft accused former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's arrival back home, a picture of the PML-N leader with his ailing wife Begum Kulsoom and daughter Maryam has suddenly gone viral on Twitter.

The picture of the father-daughter duo with ailing Begum Kulsoom at London's Harley Street Clinic has evoked an emotional response from Twitterati and prayers for the speedy recovery of PML-N leader's wife.

The picture shows Maryam breaking down into tears and Nawaz keeping his hands on Kulsoom's head.

A Pakistan-based journalistic body tweeted the picture and captioned it, "This picture will haunt many in future. Remember."

While some are seeing it as an emotional picture, some Twitter users said that photo will be marked as the ugliest face of Pakistani Establishment.

"This picture will be marked as the ugliest face of Pakistani Establishment for a hundred years," a Twitter user said.

This picture will be marked as the ugliest face of Pakistani Establishment for a hundred years pic.twitter.com/lZ0H3uW92w — pkpolitics (@pkpolitics) July 12, 2018

Maryam Nawaz has also re-tweeted the picture.

Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz, who were convicted by a Pakistani court in the Avenfield Apartments case and sentenced to 10 and 7 years in jail respectively, boarded a foreign flight late on Thursday and are scheduled to arrive in Lahore via Abu Dhabi at 6.15 pm (local time) on Friday.

"Maryam and I are coming back to face prison and even if they send me to the gallows, we know that freedom cannot be won without sacrifice. It is not easy to leave my wife on a ventilator in a hospital but I am returning along with my daughter to play our role to rid of this slavery," Nawaz Sharif was quoted as saying at a party conference in the ballroom of the Grosvenor House Hotel in central London`s Mayfair district.

Meanwhile, authorities in Pakistan have launched a massive crackdown on the PML-N activists ahead of the arrival of its supreme leader Nawaz Sharif in Lahore from London, arresting over 300 workers to stop the party's planned rally at the airport on Friday to welcome him.

"Police have arrested more than 300 PML-N workers mostly from Lahore to stop us from welcoming our leader at the airport," Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) spokesperson Marriyum Aurenzeb told PTI.

Such a massive crackdown on PML-N workers never happened even in the martial law regime, she said.

She said that despite all such tactics, the PML-N workers will reach the airport to give historic welcome to Sharif.

All national highways and motorway will remain closed ahead of the arrival of the father-daughter duo from London.

The National Highways and Motorway Police have been directed to close all the major entry and exit routes as a preventive measure, according to Dunya News.

To keep the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supporters away from the two, containers have also been installed at various points across Lahore.

Apart from this, around 22 officials of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and 100 elite commandos have been deputed at Lahore`s Allama Iqbal International Airport, where the two will arrive, as per the reports.

All the arrangement to shift the convicts in Adiala jail through helicopter have been completed and even the accountability court judge Muhammad Bashir has been asked to reach there.

On July 6, Nawaz was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment and a fine of eight million pounds was slapped on him in the Avenfield Reference case, while Maryam was sentenced to seven years of jail and fined two million pounds, by the Accountability Court.

(With Agency inputs)