Sharif brothers file plea to return home

Islamabad: Exiled former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz yesterday appealed to the Supreme Court to order the government not to obstruct their return to Pakistan.

Filing identical petitions through their lawyers, they pleaded that it was their fundamental right to live in their own country and participate in the forthcoming general election. Nawaz Sharif said that after the 1999 military coup he was implicated in various fabricated cases.

Strongly denying the government's claim that he was exiled under a deal, Nawaz Sharif said no evidence of such an agreement had been provided.