After eight years in self-exile, Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto [Images] on Thursday headed back home saying she was carrying a 'message of change and hope for a better future for democracy' even as tens of thousands of enthusiastic supporters converged in Karachi to welcome her.

"I believe in miracles and my returning home is a miracle," Bhutto, 54, who is scheduled to fly into Karachi's Jinnah International Airport Thursday afternoon, told media persons in Al-Mashriq VIP lounge of Dubai Airport, before boarding an Emirates flight.

The Pakistan People's Party chief said she expected 10 lakh people to be waiting to greet her in Karachi, her traditional stronghold.

"They have come because they want a change, they do not want unemployment, oppression and despair. I am embarking on a journey of change as my life is pledged to Pakistan and its people," Bhutto said in a brief statement read out at the airport.

"I am going home with a message of change and hope for a better future for democracy, and I hope that this moment for democracy succeeds... I am a leader of the poor. I will live and die with the poor," she said.

Bhutto came to Dubai airport in a convoy of 50 vehicles accompanied by her husband Asif Ali Zardari through a special route. However, her flight was delayed by nearly an hour.

The Emirates flight was supposed to leave at 10 am (Dubai time), but finally left at 11 am (12.30 IST). The flight will reach Karachi at 2 pm local time (2.30 pm IST).

Bhutto's husband will stay on in Dubai but she will be accompanied by her London-based younger sister Sanam, two nephews, several close friends and party workers apart from a large media contingent.

For the past eight years, Benazir, a mother of three, who fled from Pakistan in 1998 fearing arrest in graft cases, has been shuttling between London [Images] and Dubai.

Some 20,000 airport security personnel, policemen and paramilitary personnel as well as bomb disposal squads have been deployed in Karachi to protect Bhutto, who is returning to Pakistan following secret parleys with President Prevez Musharraf for a power-sharing arrangement.

Musharraf promulgated an ordinance early this month, which granted amnesty to Bhutto in corruption cases, paving the way for her return ahead of the general elections, but its legality has been challenged in the Supreme Court.

In the face of threats of suicide bombings by pro-Taliban and Al Qaeda [Images] militants, authorities in Karachi have thrown a massive security blanket over the airport and the route to be taken by 54-year-old Bhutto to Mazar-e-Quaid, the mausoleum of Pakistan's founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

Several thousand flag-waving supporters chanting 'Benazir welcome' gathered outside airport by the early morning. On the streets of Karachi, thousands of PPP, workers who have converged on the city in caravans coming from the country's four provinces, danced to frenzied drum beats and chanted slogans, waving the party's flag.

Through the night, her supporters drove through the roads of the city in trucks and buses decorated with lights and burst firecrackers. Banners and posters featuring pictures of Bhutto and her father, late Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, hung from almost every lamppost and power pylon.

Image: Former Pakistani Premer Benazir Bhutto on her way to board the flight bound for Karachi.
Reportage: PTI | Photograph: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images