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Tuesday, October 8, 2024

Decision about Musharraf’s return will be taken ‘somewhere else’: Gillani

Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) senator Yousaf Raza Gillani has said the decision regarding ailing former military dictator Pervez Musharraf’s return to Pakistan will not be taken by the Senate, “it will be taken somewhere else.”

He made these remarks during a sitting of the Senate On Wednesday (today), a day after PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif called on the PMLN-led coalition government to facilitate the ex-president’s return.

Former prime minister Gillani questioned the upper house: “Were you able to stop him when he was leaving (the country)? Will you be able to stop him from returning?”

He said, “I had forgiven him when Pervez Musharraf was in Pakistan. If he wants to come back, he can. Pakistan is his home.” But, he said, everyone should be treated equally.

Meanwhile, Jamaat-i-Islami senator Mushtaq Ahmad Khan said the Constitution of Pakistan had been victim to several injustices. He said, “We are handicapped. Our hands and feet have been tied. We are just slaves.”

“He broke the Constitution twice and murdered the judiciary. The former chief justice of Pakistan was dragged by his hair … The decision of the Peshawar High Court is in front of you,” Mushtaq Khan went on.

He asserted that the prisons should also be opened if Musharraf was brought back to the country and said the judiciary “won’t be needed” then.

Ex-president Musharraf is suffering from amyloidosis – a rare disease in which an abnormal protein called amyloid builds up in organs and tissues throughout the body – and has been hospitalised for the past few weeks.

PML-N leaders have signaled their willingness to allow his return after reports of the retired general’s frail condition in the media.

In a tweet on Tuesday, party supremo Nawaz Sharif said he had no “personal enmity or animosity” towards Musharraf, urging the government to facilitate his return to Pakistan.

Earlier, DG ISPR confirmed that Musharraf’s family was in contact with the military regarding his proposed return to Pakistan.

Major General Babar Iftikhar said that Musharraf’s return to Pakistan from UAE was a decision for his family and doctors to make.

“The institution and its leadership have the stance that he should come back,” he said.