Mohammad Hanif accompanied former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif to Pakistan on Monday. This is his gripping first person account of what happened after the PIA plane landed in Islamabad. Exclusive to rediff.com. His novel A Case of Exploding Mangoes will be published by Random House India next year.
As PK 786 came in to land at Rawalpindi airport yesterday, Nawaz Sharif stood in the middle of the Economy cabin, surrounded by his supporters, ignoring the pilot's increasingly desperate pleas for passengers to take their seats. Nawaz Sharif was returning from a seven-year long exile to defy a military dictator, he had ignored stern warnings from his Saudi friends asking him not to return; he must have thought he could get away with ignoring some basic flight safety procedures like sitting in one's seat and buckling up during the landing.
As dozens of cameras flashed and TV anchors prepared to do their this-is-a-historic-moment piece to camera, Nawaz did what everyone does as the planes touch down these days; he took out his mobile phone and made a call. He tugged at his eyebrows with two fingers, covered his mouth with the other hand and whispered something. But half a dozen microphones thrust into his face by the reporters, picked up the whisper: "Where are you?"
He was calling one of his party leaders and asking whether his supporters had surrounded the airport, whether there were crowds on the streets to welcome him. It's very unlikely that he got an answer as at that very moment all the mobile phones went dead. Reporters ready to file their Nawaz's-plane-has-landed story dialled desperately without any luck. Whatever its other achievements in war against terror might be, Pakistan's military regime has perfected the art of jamming telephones at the slightest pretext.
Pakistan International Airline's flight from Heathrow had been an ordinary journey in many ways. Air-sick children whined. A family of nine casually discussed, between complaining about the quality of PIA's tea, funeral arrangements for the body of a relative they were carrying back home. There was an announcement asking if there was a doctor on board. The cabin crew tried to sell duty free digital Qurans and Toblerones to the passengers but soon gave up.
But everything changed as the plane touched down at Rawalpindi. There was a moment's applause for the captain's smooth landing and then everyone rushed to the windows. "Elite force," someone shouted and we saw police commandoes in black uniforms moving towards the plane. "No faujis," someone pointed out. There was palpable relief in the Sharif camp.
Photograph: Nawaz Sharif speaks to the media inside Heathrow airport in London, before he boarded a flight to Islamabad. Photograph: Carl De Souza/AFP/Getty Images
Also read: What Nawaz Sharif's return means for Pakistan
Advertisement
