Funeral Prayers Of Nawaz Sharif’s Mother In Lahore Today

Funeral prayers of the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s mother Begum Shamim Akhtar will be held at the Sharif Medical City Raiwind at 1:30 pm today after which she will be laid to rest in Jatti Umra estate.

Begum Shamim passed away in London on November 22 after she had traveled to the United Kingdom earlier this year to be with her son Nawaz. She was staying with her son in the Avenfield Hospitals. Begum was also being treated for illness at a London Hospital.

However, after she passed away, her body was sent to Pakistan from London via British Airways flight BA-059. Local media outlets reported that her body, after reaching Lahore was handed over to her son, Shehbaz who was at the Lahore airport along with his son Hamza Shahbaz to receive the body.

Hamza Shahbaz and Shahbaz Sharif were in jail when their mother passed away but was released on interim bail for a week to be part of Begum’s final rites.

Nawaz Sharif and his entourage in the UK did not travel to Pakistan to participate in Begum’s funeral. Former finance minister Ishaq Dar said that he wanted to travel to Pakistan to attend the funeral but was not allowed by his medical doctors to travel due his deteriorating health.

On the other hand, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif offered his mother’s funeral prayers at a mosque in London known as Regent’s Park Mosque — where the number of participants had to be limited to 30 under the United Kingdom’s coronavirus guidelines.

Earlier, the two brothers were not allowed to participate in their father’s final rites back in 2004 as they were in a similar exile during the reign of former dictator General Pervaiz Musharraf.