Jailed former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz are likely to be shifted from Adiala jail in Rawalpindi to the rest house of Sihala Police Training College in Islamabad.
Geo TV quoted sources as saying that all arrangements have been made to move the father-daughter duo to Sihala rest house. The Islamabad chief commissioner had earlier declared the rest house as a sub-jail to keep the two figures.
Meanhile, the government in Pakistan’s Punjab province said on Thursday that Sharif is getting all the facilities in jail he is entitled to under the law.
The government's clarification was issued after former chief minister and PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif complained that his elder brother Sharif has been kept in “abysmal conditions” in the Adiala jail.
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Separately, Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Prisons, Malik Mubashir, issued a statement to provide the list of facilities given to Sharif.
Mubashir said that Sharif was jailed in a separate cell in a Better Class portion of the jail and has been issued a steel bed, table, chair, newspapers, sheets for his personal bed, personal clothes, one ceiling fan, two bracket fans and toiletries. He has also been allowed to keep a 21-inch TV.
He also has been provided adequate space to take a walk and he “regularly goes for a stroll in the lawn attached to his cell”.
Talking about medical facilities, he said that the jail’s medical staff and Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology (RIC) consultants regularly conduct his medical check-up and his health is “satisfactory”.
He said that a special cook has been providing the diet recommended for him by an RIC nutritionist, which includes fruits, salad, dates and qeema (minced meat).
The family members and friends can meet him on Thursdays while his lawyers can meet him on any one day of the week.
On July 6, Sharif and Maryam were convicted in the Avenfield reference case by the Accountability Court.
While Sharif was given ten years of imprisonment and slapped with a fine of eight million pounds, Maryam was awarded eight years in jail and fined two million pounds. Also, Nawaz's son-in-law Captain (retd) Muhammad Safdar was given a one-year sentence without any fine.
Upon their arrival at Lahore, the father-daughter duo was taken to Islamabad by a special chartered flight, from where they were taken to Adiala jail in Rawalpindi.
It should be noted that Sharif and Maryam were in London for a month to meet the former's ailing wife, Kulsoom Nawaz, who is undergoing treatment for cancer.
On Tuesday, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) had cancelled the bail requests of Sharif, Maryam and Safdar in connection to the Avenfield properties case.
A two-judge division bench comprising Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb and Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kyani had issued a notice to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to submit a response on appeals filed by the Sharif family.
The bench rejected the appeal to grant bail to Sharif, Maryam and Safdar, and directed the NAB to submit its reply to the application seeking to suspend their conviction, ARY News reported.
Furthermore, it requested the authorities to present a complete record of the Avenfield judgment in the next hearing.
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(With agency inputs)
