NEW YORK, Aug 17: Amid reports that a tentative deal between Pakistan People’s Party and President Gen Pervez Musharraf was unravelling, three senior PPP leaders flew back home on Thursday after consultations with party chief Benazir Bhutto.

Ms Bhutto had summoned Makhdoom Amin Fahim, Raja Pervez Ashraf and Farhatullah Babar to New York last week in the wake of her reported meeting with President Gen Pervez Musharraf in Abu Dhabi, apparently to get an update on the situation in Pakistan and the mood of the people.

While the three PPP leaders refused to make any statement, party sources said they held a number of meetings with the chairperson that were fitted into her tight schedule here, with one session taking place at the JFK airport when she went to receive her son Bilawal.

The sources also said that the former prime minister would certainly go back to Pakistan to contest the elections scheduled for later in the year.

One local party leader said that Ms Bhutto would risk jail and return even if the deal did not get through and corruption charges against her and her husband Asif Zardari were not quashed.