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Published 08 Jul, 2016 11:28am

Dedicated PIA aircraft to carry PM, camp office back to Pakistan

RAWALPINDI: A dedicated Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) aircraft has been deputed to transport Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his London camp office back to Pakistan, PIA spokesman Danyal Gilani said on Friday.

"Due to the prime minister's health issues, PM Office had partly been shifted to London where a camp office had been set up," said a statement issued by the airline.

"Now that the PM has recovered after his surgery and is allowed to travel, the whole camp office has to be shifted back to Pakistan. On PIA's regular flights, so many seats were not available, due to which the only option was to depute a dedicated aircraft," the statement said.

The statement did not, however, mention a date for the PM's return to Pakistan.

Shahbaz Sharif flew to London earlier this week for Eid holidays and will likely return to Pakistan with the premier.

Local media reports claim the prime minister is scheduled to return to Pakistan on July 9 after doctors gave him the go-ahead.

PM Nawaz underwent open-heart surgery at a London hospital on May 31.

The need for the surgery arose after the premier went through a cardiac procedure called Atrial Fibrillation Ablation in 2011, "during which certain complications occurred resulting in perforation of heart", Maryam Nawaz earlier told the media.

Many had called it a politically prudent decision to leave the country at a time when opposition parties were exerting pressure on the government in the wake of the Panama leaks, however, the same reason necessitated the visit, a PML-N office-bearer had told Dawn.

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) secretary general Jahangir Khan Tareen last week said the party’s preparations for launching a "massive protest movement" over the Panama Leaks soon after Eidul Fitr were in full swing.

Government and opposition leaders had agreed on May 18 to form a 12-member parliamentary committee — including six members each from both sides — that will draft the Terms of Reference (ToRs) for the proposed commission to be headed by the chief justice of Pakistan for holding an inquiry against those owning offshore companies as revealed by the Panama Papers leaks.

Both government and the opposition parties had agreed that besides concentrating on the individuals named in the Panama Papers, the committee will also go after those who received kickbacks and commissions, as well as those who had their loans written off illegally.

On May 31, the committee ended its fourth meeting without even discussing the issue.

According to independent observers, the committee may not reach consensus because both sides are poles apart as far as their expectations are concerned.

Read more: ‘Panama Papers’ reveal Sharif family’s ‘offshore holdings’

An investigation published April 3 by an international coalition of more than 100 media outlets ─ based on 11.5 million records and 2.6 terabytes of information drawn from the internal database of Panamaian law firm Mossack Fonseca ─ details how politicians, celebrities and other famous people use banks, law firms and offshore shell companies to hide their assets.

According to documents available on the ICIJ website, the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's children Maryam, Hasan and Hussain "were owners or had the right to authorise transactions for several companies".

The data leak revealed the financial wheelings and dealings of over 200 Pakistanis, including the late Benazir Bhutto, Rehman Malik and other prominent politicians and businessmen.

Know more: What the Panama Papers disclose about Pakistan’s politicians

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