Sharif supporters mob airport to welcome their hero

LAHORE: Chanting "Long live Nawaz Sharif", supporters of the former Pakistani premier surged towards the airport of this eastern city on Sunday to give him a rousing welcome home from exile.   

A hardcore of around 100 loyalists, some with the flags of his political party draped over their clothes, broke through a police cordon to reach the gates of the arrival hall.   

Police brandishing bamboo canes tried to push them back, but another 1,500 managed to gather in the car park outside Allama Iqbal international airport about an hour before his plane was due to touch down.   

As the crowd whipped themselves up into a frenzy, they began to chant "Go Musharraf, go!", calling for the downfall of President Pervez Musharraf, the man who ousted their hero in a coup in 1999.   

Elsewhere in the city there was tight security, car horns blared, music boomed from loudspeakers and flags and colourful banners festooned the city, Sharif's political bastion in the east of the emergency-ruled country.   

Late into the previous night diehard supporters had danced and enjoyed fireworks in the old part of Lahore.   

He was due to touch down at the city airport in a plane lent by the Saudi royal family at about 6:25pm (1325 GMT), party officials said.   

Security was stepped up, with around 1,000 police deployed at Lahore airport and a total of around 5,000 across the city manning checkposts.   

"It took us the whole day to get here from the other side of the city because they stopped us at every checkpoint," said supporter Mustafa Ali.   

"But now we are here, we will give Nawaz Sharif a massive welcome home."   

Siddiqul Farooq, a senior member of Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League party, said police had arrested 3,000 activists across the central Pakistani province of Punjab.   

Police officials said the figure was only about 100, but Sharif's nephew Hamza Shabaz predicted a huge turnout anyway.   

"Lahore will accord a rousing welcome to Nawaz Sharif, mark my words," he told Dawn television.    He said it would be unfair to compare it to the 250,000-strong crowd that turned out to welcome another ex-premier, Benazir Bhutto, on October 18.   

"He had only hours, not even days to galvanise the masses and to mobilise our workers," Shabaz said.   

Police say the security is not to prevent a mass show of support for Sharif, but to prevent a repeat of the double suicide bombing that hit Bhutto's welcome home party which killed 139 people and wounded more than 300.   

Sharif's motorcade was to travel through the city's congested heart before stopping for a homage ceremony at a shrine to the city's guardian Sufi saint Hazrat Data Ganj Bakhsh.   

Crowds began to gather along the route. Loudspeakers fitted on cars boomed out music and youths waved victory signs as they blared horns.   

"It's like an Eid festival for us. We are very happy, we are overjoyed our leader is coming home. He is our prime minister," said one supporter, Khadim Hussain, referring the Muslim festival Eid al-Fitr.   

The 40-kilometre (25-mile) road leading from the city centre to the Sharif family's residence was also decorated with welcome arches and banners.   

His servants, busy cleaning rooms on the sprawling estate, said they were "very happy that the Sharif family is returning after eight years."   

Sharif had tried to return in September this year but was unceremoniously deported within hours by Pakistani authorities.   

This time a C-130 aircraft arrived in Lahore late on Saturday with his family's personal belongings, party officials said, including an armour-plated Mercedes gifted to him by Saudi King Abdullah.   

Sharif's planned return follows what a senior government official called an "understanding," allowing him to leave Saudi Arabia where he has lived since late 2000, for Pakistan ahead of January elections.   

However Mushahidullah Khan, a senior party leader, denied any such deal.