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Sharief's assets seized

An official announcement on Sunday night said liabilities and encumbrances of any of these assets and properties 'will be cleared by the Sharief family before the takeover by the government'.

The confiscated assets include industrial assets, Brother Steel Mills, Hudabiya Paper Mills Limited, Hudabiya Engineering Company while residential properties include houses at Lahore and Murree, besides agricultural property in different cities in Punjab.

Sixty acres of agricultural land belonging to Sharief's family has also been confiscated.

Large fines and disqualification of Sharief from public office for a period of 21 years would remain, the statement said.

President Mohammed Rafiq Tarar had pardoned Sharief from serving the rest of his sentence on hijacking and tax evasion charges for which he was jailed earlier this year.

The Musharraf regime's decision to permit Sharief to leave Pakistan invited severe condemnation from major political and religious parties.

They slammed the military regime for allowing deposed premier Nawaz Sharief and his family members to live in exile in Saudi Arabia and demanded that the deal under which he had been freed be made public, media reports said on Monday.

Influential Pakistani English daily The News, in a strong editorial, termed Sharief's departure deal as a 'great betrayal', while Dawn wrote that with a resurgent former premier being removed from the political scenario, 'few excuses remain for holding up the return of democracy'.

The parties condemned the government for making a 'mockery' of the fight against corruption in Pakistan by releasing 51-year-old Sharief who faced number of corruption cases.

The parties also hit out at the former premier for striking an 'underhand' deal with the regime of Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

Former Premier Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party termed the presidential pardon for Sharief, who was serving jail sentences for plane hijacking and corruption charges, as part of a 'plea bargain' as having exposed the real goal of the so-called accountability drive.

"It is clear that accountability has little to do with corruption and everything to do with achieving political ends by fair means or foul for a certain political agenda," a PPP spokesman said.

Fundamentalist and religious parties Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan Awami Tehrik, JUI-F and several others said the deal to release Sharief left the 'existence of the government and the accountability drive null and void".

Referring to Asif Ali Zardari, the jailed husband of Bhutto, the PPP spokesman said Zardari had been granted bail for medical treatment by several courts but was still in prison whereas Sharief was freed on health grounds bypassing the judiciary.

On the future of the multi-party Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, he said it was too early to speak on the participation of the Pakistan Muslim League (N), the party led by Sharief.

PML (Chattha) chief Hamid Nasir Chattha was of the view that the 'biggest loser' was the present military regime for having struck a 'bad deal'.

Awami National Party's Begum Wasim Wali said, "This is the same government that first brought cases against Sharief. Then they moved an appeal to hang him. Now they allow him to go into exile. The army says they have acted in the greater national interest. We would like to know what is this interest."

Maintaining that with Sharief's departure, an era of politics of corruption and deception had ended, Imran Khan, former cricket captain and chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf, said the former premier has 'now joined the infamous list of despots, along with Idi Amin and Benazir Bhutto, who have sought refuge abroad'.

EARLIER REPORTS
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