Our bags are packed, says Bhutto aide

Dubai: Former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto is all set to return home defying fears of arrest, threats of assassination from Islamist millitants and rejecting the government's repeated calls to delay her homecoming.

"There is no second thought now. Bhutto is definitely going back despite all odds. Our bags are packed and we are going to open them only in Pakistan," Makhdoom Ameen Fahim, senior leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), told Gulf News yesterday after holding extensive meetings with his party chairperson Benazir Bhutto at her residence in Dubai.

Fahim acknowledged that the Pakistan government had "expressed its wish" asking Bhutto to delay her return. "But we have decided to go back as planned, come what may," said Fahim, who will accompany Bhutto from Dubai with more than 150 party leaders, journalists and guests from Europe and United States.

Supporters gather

He said the decision of the Supreme Court to put on hold the implementation of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) promulgated by President General Musharraf to give amnesty to political leaders and bureaucrats from 1986 to 1999, will not deter Bhutto from returning home.

Bhutto will address a press conference in Dubai today and is expected to make some important announcements before travelling to Karachi tomorrow. It is still not clear whether Bhutto will be an ally of President Musharraf or campaign against him leading up to the next general elections expected in January.

Meanwhile, according to reports from Pakistan, hundreds of thousands of PPP supporters have began gathering in Karachi to welcome Bhutto. "We expect more than one million people to welcome her," said a party spokesperson.

Elaborate security arra-ngements have been made with 3,000 policemen and thousands of PPP activists to ensure Bhutto's safety, officials said.

Qaim Ali Shah, PPP president for Sindh province, was quoted as saying by Reuters: "People have talked about a million-man march before but we will show them in reality ... people are coming by foot, by car, by bus, by train from all over Pakistan."