Former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s daughter Maryam Nawaz on Friday claimed his health had worsened and that authorities were not letting his cardiologists examine him in the Lahore jail.
Maryam Nawaz said that Sharif, who has been serving a seven-year jail term in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail in a corruption case, is suffering from a pain in his arm, “which is most likely to be angina”.
“MNS’s [Mian Nawaz Sharif’s] cardiologists have been trying to get access to him all day but permission not granted,” she tweeted. “He has pain in the arm which is most likely to be angina. He needs to be examined by the doctors who are privy to his complicated medical history.”
Sharif had undergone an open-heart surgery about three years ago in London. Last month, a court in Pakistan had sentenced him to seven years in jail and fined him $2.5 million (approximately Rs 17.5 crore) in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills corruption case.
Maryam Nawaz also retweeted a post by a Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) worker, who claimed that Sharif’s personal doctor had not been allowed to examine him even though the former prime minister had complained about the pain in his arm.
Maryam Nawaz had visited her father in jail on Thursday, Dawn reported.
Authorities, however, refuted her claims that Sharif was being denied medical treatment. Dr Shahbaz Gill, spokesperson for the Punjab chief minister, in a video said that Maryam Nawaz’s allegations were “completely false”.
Gill claimed that a doctor had asked the jail administration and requested a meeting with Sharif in the evening. However, a jail doctor had already conducted Sharif’s medical check-up earlier in the day and found all his health paraments to be normal, he said. Sharif’s doctor was then asked to visit the next day and he had acknowledged the same, Gill added.
Sharif had reportedly requested a meeting with his physician after complaining of flu and fever earlier this week. “However, I am in good health,” an unidentified party leader, who met Sharif on Thursday, quoted him as saying.
Senior leader Ahsan Iqbal in a tweet also alleged that the government was “deliberately” depriving the former prime minister and his brother Shahbaz Sharif of medical facilities.
“If something happens to the health of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, [we] will have a case registered against Prime Minister [Imran Khan], the chief minister, interior secretary and the jail superintendent,” the former minister said.
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