Sharif returns today, Pak braces for confrontation

The Pakistan government today braced for a confrontation with a defiant Nawaz Sharif sticking to his plan to return home tomorrow after a seven-year exile. The former premier, who has ignored international appeals not to return, faces deportation or arrest.

Pakistan sounded a high alert at airports, clamped prohibitory orders and detained hundreds of activists of Sharif's party, the PML(N), as the former premier said he was set to return to "play his part in Pakistani politics" to challenge the "reckless,impulsive dictator."

Sharif and his brother Shabaz were due to fly to Islamabad from London via Muscat at 12.15 pm, his spokesman said in London.

The government has not announced any plan to deal with the brothers but says it will act under the law.

Amid media reports that Sharif will be deported immediately after arrival, Saudi Arabia has offered to accept the brothers as exiles. They had spent six years in the kingdom after they were exiled in 2000. Geo TV reported that a plane of an Arab country would reach Islamabad airport as part of the government's plan to deport them. Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief and the influential son of assassinated former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri yesterday joined calls for Sharif to scrap his plan to return.

Sharif, in an interview to a TV channel, dismissed talks of deportation, saying Musharraf "dare" not do this since there was no justification for him to use this option.

Authorities in Islamabad plan to seal all main roads to Islamabad's international airport to stop people from welcoming Sharif. A PML leader, Ahsan Iqbal, however, said in Islamabad their activists would reach the airport and not allow the plane to take off in the event of Sharif being deported.

On Sharif's arrest, media reports said a cell in a centuries-old fort in Attock in Punjab had been kept ready. The government has re-opened corruption cases against Sharif and reports suggest he may be arrested in these cases.

Information Minister Muhammed Ali Durrani said Sharif should respect his commitment to the most revered Muslim country (Saudia Arabia) and its leadership and complete 10 years in exile.

Local media reported that Sharif's plane was likely to be diverted to the international airport at Quetta, the capital of the southwestern Balochistan province.

Sharif's planned arrival comes at a time when Pakistan awaits the return of another former premier, Benazir Ali Bhutto, from her self-imposed exile. The date of her return is expected to be announced on September14.

The Sharif brothers have announced plans to lead a procession to the central city of Lahore, the capital of the Punjab province, after landing in Islamabad.