LONDON Oct 21 (TNS): Expressing concern over the alleged disappearance of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) social media activists, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif asked the Ministry of Interior to ensure their recovery.
Speaking to media here on Saturday, Sharif said it was constitutional duty of the government to protect freedom of speech, including on social media.
Suppressing points of view forcefully is deplorable, he said, adding that he strongly believes in the freedom of expression.
Sharif asked the Ministry of interior to take notice of enforced disappearances and ensure recovery of those abducted.
The former prime minister is currently in London, tending his ailing wife Kulsoom Nawaz who is undergoing treatment for throat cancer.
Sharif is scheduled to return home from London on Oct 24 to appear in an accountability court for an upcoming hearing in graft references against him and members of his family on Oct 26.
On Oct 5, the former prime minister had departed for London to visit his ailing wife Begum Kulsoom Nawaz undergoing treatment for throat cancer.
The accountability court, Islamabad, has indicted Sharif in absentia through his pleader in three references and will begin recording the statements of NAB witnesses from Oct 26.
Sharif and his sons – Hussain and Hassan – have been named in three corruption references, while his daughter Maryam and her husband have been named in single graft reference related to the family’s London flats.
Following the passage of the Election Reforms Act 2017 Oct 3, Sharif was re-elected unopposed as the president of PML-N party since no other party leader submitted nomination papers for the slot of the party president.
On July 28, the apex court had disqualified former prime minister Nawaz Sharif from holding public office and ordered the accountability bureau for filing references against him, his children and finance minister Ishaq Dar in light of the Panama joint investigation team report.
