LAHORE: The Punjab government will continue providing all facilities to former prime minister Nawaz Sharif as allowed in the jail manual, assures Chief Minister Usman Buzdar in his tweet here on Tuesday.

Reacting to a tweet from Leader of Opposition in National Assembly Shahbaz Sharif, who had complained being barred from seeing his brother regularly, the CM said: “Shahbaz Sharif thinks that the present (PTI) government would continue behaving illegally like the past government, including that of the PML-N. In the past, political prisoners were tortured in every which way. Leave alone medical treatment, they were treated inhumanly (under the PML-N government). The PTI, on the other hand, is providing all facilities, more than what the jail manual allows. The manual allows one visit per week and that would continue to happen and so would be all other facilities under the jail manual,” the CM promised.

PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif in a tweet complained: “Family members and I used to meet Nawaz Sharif two to three times in a week to know about his health but now we have been limited to Thursdays. Depriving the mother, sister, brother and daughter of their due right is blatant oppression.”

His tweet followed what Maryam Nawaz Sharif had to say on Monday: “I am still waiting for the permission to meet Nawaz Sharif. He is unwell and it has been five days that I have no access to him. Not even his personal physician has been allowed to see him.”

Talking to reporters in Islamabad, Opposition Leader in Punjab Assembly Hamza Shahbaz criticised some ministers for politicising the health of Nawaz. He asked Prime Minister Imran Khan to stop his ministers from doing politics on Sharif’s health.

“They should show a mature attitude,” he demanded.Punjab Minister for Information Samsam Bukhari on Tuesday had rebuked Maryam Nawaz stating that the Sharif family had not been barred from meeting Nawaz Sharif in jail.

“There is no restriction imposed by the government,” he said, adding that Maryam and other family members can meet former premier whenever they want.

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2019