New Delhi: Former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto was on Thursday night disallowed from taking a flight to Dubai after airport authorities found some "technical problems" with her passport.
Bhutto, who was scheduled to go on a four-day trip to Dubai where her husband Asif Ali Zardari, her daughter and her mother currently live, was stopped at the international airport in Islamabad.
Officials have pointed out some "technical problems" with her passport, leaders of her Pakistan People's Party (PPL) said amid reports that the travel document had expired.
They said the problem is being sorted out so that she could leave for Dubai on Friday morning.
However, Bhutto said, “It was my fault to have taken expired passport. My new passport is in Karachi so I delayed my departure by one day. The government has no role in my not going to Dubai.”
Bhutto's decision to travel out of the country came amidst persisting differences between PPP and rival Nawaz Sharif's PML-N on framing the charter of demands, especially on the issue of reinstating Supreme Court judges who were sacked for not endorsing the emergency imposed by President Pervez Musharraf on November 3.
Bhutto and Sharif, who met for the first time since returning to Pakistan from exile on Monday, had warned that they could boycott the January 8 parliamentary polls if the government did not fulfill the proposed charter of demands.
The eight-member committee formed by the PPP and PML-N to draw up the charter of demands could take "between three days and a week" to complete its work, Bhutto told Dawn News channel on Thursday night.
The committee held its third session on Friday. In Lahore, Sharif reiterated his demand for reinstating the judges and restoring the judiciary to its pre-emergency status. He told reporters that "things cannot move forward" unless this is done.
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