FORMER Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif returned home yesterday from eight years in exile, the latest political heavyweight to join Pakistan’s deepening power struggle.

The plane carrying Sharif touched down early yesterday evening in his home city of Lahore, where crowds of supporters were waiting to greet him, witnesses and a party official said.

Meanwhile, police detained supporters of Sharif and sealed off the airport ahead of his planned return Sunday from exile, stark reminders that the emergency rule imposed by his nemesis President Gen. Pervez Musharraf remains in effect.

Sharif took off from Saudi Arabia during the day with family members, according to a security official at the Saudi airport who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk with the press.

Saudi Arabia is where Sharif has spent most of the past eight years since Musharraf overthrew him in 1999.

Ahsan Iqbal, a spokesman for Sharif’s party, said some 1,800 activists were detained in a crackdown since late Saturday in Punjab province, of which Lahore is the capital.

However, federal Information Minister Nisar Memon said he was exaggerating.

“There are no arrests as such,” Memon said. “About 100 people have been confined so that they do not create any issues. We don’t want the same mess as there was in Karachi.”

He was referring to the huge rally that greeted another former premier, Benazir Bhutto, when she was allowed to return to Pakistan last month. Bhutto’s homecoming procession was torn by a suicide bombing that killed about 150 people.

Both Bhutto and Sharif are seeking to return to power after Jan. 8 parliamentary elections.

(SD-Agencies)