Sharif back in Lahore

Exiled former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was deposed by Gen. Pervez Musharraf in a coup on October 12, 1999 and sent into exile in Saudi Arabia a year later, finally managed to return home to Lahore on Sunday after living abroad for the past seven years.

He is the second former Prime Minister, after Ms Benazir Bhutto, to end his exile before the January 8 general election in Pakistan.

Mr Sharif had made an attempt to return to the country a little more than two months ago, when he flew in on a Pakistan International Airlines flight from London on September 10 this year, but he was arrested at the airport itself.