Plane carrying Begum Kulsoom's body arrives in Lahore

Lahore: A plane carrying the body of Begum Kulsoom Nawaz, the wife of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, from London arrived in Lahore, where she will be buried later Friday.

The body has been shifted to Jati Umra Lahore residence of the Sharif family for burial, Geo TV reported. Kulsoom died Tuesday in a London hospital after a long battle with cancer. She was 68. She would be buried Friday.

The Pakistan International Airlines’ flight carrying the body landed at the Allama Iqbal International Airport here around 6:45 a.m (local time). Shehbaz Sharif, the deceased’s brother-in-law and president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), along with Begum Kulsoom’s daughter Asma, grandson Zayd Hussain Sharif (Hussain Nawaz’s son), and 11 other family members accompanied the body.

Hassan and Hussain Nawaz, Begum Kulsoom’s sons, did not return to the country for their mother’s funeral. Both have been declared absconders by an accountability court in the corruption cases. Kulsoom’s funeral prayers will be held at the Sharif Medical City in Jati Umra neighbourhood at 5 p.m. (local time).

“Congregational prayers (Rasm-i-Qul) for her will be offered on Sunday between Asr and Maghreb,” Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb told PTI. The former three-time premier, who was accompanied by Sharif family members to pay respects to Begum Kulsoom at Sharif Medical City after her body was brought to Lahore, is currently meeting guests in Jati Umra.

Sharif, his daughter Maryam and son-in-law Capt (retd) M Safdar, currently serving jail terms in the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi after being convicted by an accountability court in a corruption case in July, have been released on parole to attend Kulsoom’s funeral. Meanwhile, the Punjab home department has issued a notification announcing an extension in the parole already awarded to Sharif for additional five days – September 12 (4pm) to September 17 (4pm).

On Thursday, hundreds of people attended the funeral prayers of Begum Kulsoom at London’s Regent Park mosque, which was separate from another one to take place in Lahore Friday. They chanted slogans of ‘we salute to the mother of democracy’. The funeral prayers were attended by her sons Hassan and Hussain, brother-in-law Shehbaz Sharif, former ministers Chaudhry Nisar and Ishaq Dar among others.