LAHORE, April 16: Authorities late on Saturday night decided to set free all PPP MPs and other leaders detained earlier in the day to keep them from a rally planned to greet Asif Ali Zardari.

Official sources said the decision was taken in a meeting chaired by Punjab Law Minister Raja Muhammad Basharat. “They are free to go home,” he said.

However, the PPP said only few of its leaders, like its Punjab President Qasim Zia, had been set free. “How can leaders go home when workers are still behind bars,” PPP information secretary Naveed Chaudhry said.

He also denied reports that the entire leadership had been conveyed the decision.

Govt officials said all the PPP lawmakers had been asked to leave police stations but some of them refused to go home and demanded release of all workers.

“We need to go through the lists of held workers,” a senior police official said when asked about the release of PPP activists arrested from Lahore and other parts of the Punjab.