News Analysis |
President Mamnoon Hussain has phoned caretaker prime minister Justice (retd) Nasirul Mulk to ensure that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif is provided complete medical treatment, in wake of the former PM’s ‘failing’ health. The president telephoned the caretaker premier and stressed that Nawaz should be provided with all medical facilities required.
President Mamnoon expressed deep concern over the former premier’s health, who is presently imprisoned in Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail for corruption in the infamous Evanfield reference. A five-member medical board constituted by Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) conducted Nawaz’s medical check-up earlier on 23rd July, 2018. According to local media, the doctors from PIMS have declared that the former Prime Minister is suffering from five different ailments concerning his heart, kidneys, diabetes and blood pressure for which he takes regular medication.
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The caretaker government wanted the medical board to cross-check the report of Major General (retd) Dr Azhar Mehmood Kiyani, head of Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology (RIC) which had been built under Shehbaz Sharifs tenure in Punjab, on Nawaz’s health, sources claimed. A team of health officials led by Dr Kiyani carried out the former premier’s medical check-up at Central Jail Rawalpindi on Sunday, 22nd of July after reports surfaced that Nawaz Sharif was on the verge of kidney failure owing to dehydration.
The former Premier, his daughter Maryam Nawaz and his son in law Capt ® Safdar were sentenced to 11, 8 and 2 years in prison respectively earlier this month in a graft concerning high-end properties in London. The case had been on-going since the global financial scandal “Panama Leaks” in April 2016, which subsequently led to Nawaz Sharif’s disqualification from the premiership and landed him in Adyala Jail, Rawalpindi, along with Maryam and Safdar.
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On the first day of their incarceration, reports surfaced of Maryam Nawaz suffering from diarrhea due to unhygienic conditions of the cell she was kept in and unfiltered water. Nawaz Sharif too, according to his son Hussain Nawaz’s twitter handle, was kept in abysmal conditions with no proper bed and an unsanitary toilet.
Soon after, Nawaz, Maryam and Safdar were transferred to “better class” of the prison which entitled them to separate rooms, a cook, bedding, a television, newspapers and a small patch of grass to walk. According to law, the better class of jail can be availed only by former military officers, former gazetted government officers or former members of the parliament. Maryam is the only one of the trio that does not fall into any of these criterions.