Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has expressed anger and unhappiness over the alleged "usage of government machinery" to welcome former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif back to his homeland after self-imposed exile in the UK.
His return comes just a few months before the next general election which is expected to be held in January.
The party said it would hold Sharif accountable for the government resources lavished on the ‘VVIP protocol’ extended to him, even if no one else did.
PTI secretary-general Omar Ayub Khan was quoted by media reports as saying that the "convict" was being welcomed unjustly and unlawfully.
Sharif, who is expected to be the top campaigner for his political party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), in the forthcoming general elections, handed over the reins of the party to his younger brother Shehbaz Sharif, who occupied the country's top job from April 2022 to August 2023 while Nawaz was in exile.
Pakistan is expected to stage its general election in January 2024.
“A convicted prisoner got VVIP protocol and the State Room opened at Islamabad Airport to receive him,” Khan said, alleging that the country's legal system had been completely destroyed by PML-N.
According to reports, the PTI secretary-general pointed to a picture of 73-year-old Sharif receiving an enthusiastic welcome at the airport and said: "One country, Two constitutions!"
“This picture not only shows the revival of Nawaz Sharif but also the funeral of Pakistan’s judicial system. The whole world has witnessed the coercion and treatment of [imprisoned PTI leader] Imran Khan for the same reasons,” he said while excoriating Sharif's welcome to the country, which is being run by a caretaker government at present.
Another senior member of the PTI - Moonis Elahi - alleged that "[Nawaz Sharif's] return had been managed".
“Never in the history of Pakistan has a convicted absconder been welcomed like this,” he reportedly said.
Several other members of the PTI - whose leader and former Prime Minister Imran Khan is in prison on charges of corruption - have expressed similar sentiments ever since Sharif returned. Nawaz Sharif was handed a 14-year prison sentence by an anti-corruption court in 2018 but was allowed to escape to London in 2019 by the Imran Khan-led government on the grounds that he required medical treatment.