Pakistan's Punjab province Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif today paid a visit to his native village of Jati Umra here, where he was accorded a warm welcome by the residents.
Sharif, along with Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, landed at a makeshift helipad on the outskirts of the village. He took a deep breath as he reached his ancestral land.
He touched the soil as he seemed recollecting the stories he heard from his father and grandfather about the village, and tried to match their descriptions with the present day.
Sharif was emotionally touched when he rose to speak at his reception function amidst a huge applause from over 1,000 villagers, who waited for more than five hours to have a glimpse of "the son of the village".
He immediately touched a chord with the villagers by paying respect to elders and speaking in chaste Punjabi.
He recalled his first visit to the village, along with his father and five uncles, when they sat on the cots of the panchayat and relished hot milk served by the villagers.
He said his father was very emotionally connected with this village because theirs was the only Muslim family here.
He said that it was all destiny that his family migrated first to Amritsar. Recalling their struggle from the family of humble farmers, he said his uncles worked as daily wagers at the factory of one Hindu and later started their own iron-casting factory.
He said when this factory was taken over by Bhutto they started their journey from the scratch, and with the grace of god he was now Wazir-e-Azam of Pakistan-Punjab and his brother was Wazir-e-Azam of Pakistan. Sharif said it was destiny that his father migrated before the partition and he was born in Pakistan.
