NAWABSHAH, Dec 4: Former senator Asif Ali Zardari has said that Pakistan People's Party chairperson Benazir Bhutto will soon return to the country with people power. Addressing people who had gathered to greet him in Shahpur Jehanian near here on Saturday , he predicted that the PPP would come to power again.

When Mr Zardari reached his hometown here after eight years of imprisonment, he was received by thousands of PPP activists, supporters and leaders. The latter included MPAs Ghulam Qadir Chandio, Jam Tamachi Unnar, Syed Ali Ahmad Shah and Tariq Masood Arain and Nawabshah Taluka Nazim Ali Akbar Jamali.

The PPP activists were holding party flags and posters of their leaders and raising slogans of Jeay Bhutto. People from Daulatpur, Qazi Ahmad, Sakrand and Nawabshah city welcomed Mr Zardari's motorcade comprising hundreds of vehicles. They let off fireworks.

The former senator said that through the support and love people showed to him, he had passed tough eight years in jail and added that he was excited and happy to return home.

He thanked the people for taking care of his family during his absence.

MNA Syed Ghulam Mustafa Shah, Mr Zardari's brother-in-law Mir Munawwar Ali Talpur, Ghazi Salahuddin and others welcomed him at the Zardari House in Nawabshah.

Hundreds of people from remote areas had reached the Zardari House on Saturday morning to meet him. A heavy contingent of police was deployed and scanning machines were installed at the main gate of the house for security reasons.

Earlier, Mr Zardari - accompanied by his sister and Nawabshah District Nazim Faryal Talpur, brother-in-law Mir Munawwar Talpur, Asif Ahmed Ali and others - offered fateha at the graves of his mother, uncles and other relatives at the Balo-ja-Quba graveyard, 10 kilometres from here.

Our Dadu Correspondent adds: Talking to journalists at the residence of PPP MNA Rafique Ahmed Jamali here late on Friday night, Mr Zardari asked party leaders and activists to prepare for general elections next year.

He insisted that the PPP had not compromised on any issue and that he had not been released on any deal with the government.

He said that he was kept in jail for eight years, but the government had not been able to prove a single case against him because, he asserted, he was innocent and implicated in fake cases for demanding rights of the poor.

He said that he would visit other provinces soon to start a countrywide campaign for setting up a democratic system in the country with the help of the people.

He said that sacrifices of the PPP leaders, including Abdullah Murad and Munawwar Suhrawardy, would not go in vain.

Tickets for contesting elections had not been awarded to 'real' PPP workers in the last general elections because he was in jail, he alleged, adding that in the next general elections, tickets would be given to 'real' workers.

Accompanied by PPP provincial president Qaim Ali Shah, opposition leader in the Sindh assembly Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, MPAs Murad Ali Shah and Marvi Mazhar, District Nazim Malik Asad Sikandar, he also spoke to the people at various welcome camps in the district.

WORKER DIES: A PPP activist, Ghulam Shabbir Panhwar, 30, fell from a gate set up here to welcome Mr Zardari and died when a truck ran over him.