Sharif deported soon after return

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ISLAMABAD, Sept 10 (Agencies): Nawaz Sharif, the former Pakistani prime minister, was arrested and then deported to Saudi Arabia Monday, just hours after he returned to Pakistan in a defiant end to seven years in exile.
Sharif was flown out of Islamabad's international airport shortly after complaining to reporters about a government crackdown on his supporters.
"Our people have not been allowed to come here, they have been stopped," he said.
A government minister, who asked not to be named, said that Sharif was being deported to Saudi Arabia.
Reuters quoted Saudi sources as confirming that he had arrived in the Saudi port city of Jeddah. Earlier, a Pakistani minister told the FT that deportation was "under active consideration." Eyewitnesses said that a Pakistani plane had been made ready for Sharif.
Another PTI report add, Nawaz Sharif's wife Khulsoom Nawaz Monday said she would shortly return to Pakistan to challenge President Pervez Musharraf's military regime.
Condemning the government's action, Khulsoom, who initially led Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League after her husband was arrested following a military coup by Musharraf in 1999 until they were sent to exile in Jeddah in 2000, said she would arrive in a few days time to take up the cudgels on her husband's behalf.
"I will soon return and see how they (government) can stop. I want to come in few days time," she told Geo TV in a telephone interview from London.
Meanwhile Islamabad report adds, Sharif was earlier arrested, but a senior government official said it was difficult to tell the nature of charges against him.
"Nawaz Sharif has been arrested but it's not clear if the arrest is on existing charges from the past or new charges," said the official.
The Pakistani government had said before Sharif arrived that he could be forced to serve out the remainder of a prison term he avoided when he was exiled to Saudi Arabia in 2000.
The government says that Sharif agreed to go into exile for 10 years when he left Pakistan for Saudi Arabia in 2000. Sharif claims he had promised to remain outside Pakistan for only five years.
Sharif decided to return home to challenge President Pervez Musharraf's bid for a another term in office after a Supreme Court verdict on August 23 that allowed him and his brother Shahbaz, a senior leader of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), an "inalienable right to enter and remain in the country as citizens of Pakistan".
"At least 4,000 of our people have been arrested, there's a brutal crackdown underway" said Ahsan Iqbal, a leader of Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).
There were also reports of the overnight arrest of senior PML-N leaders including Raja Zafar ul Haq and Javed Hashmi, who are among Sharif's key lieutenants.
Journalists who had camped within the vicinity of the airport were ordered to leave as the airport authorities switched on telephone jammers to block mobile phone signals.