The family of former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto [Images] left for Pakistan on Thursday evening, hours after Bhutto was assassinated in Rawalpindi.

Her husband Asif Ali Zardari and children will fly to Karachi, and then make their way to Rawalpindi.

Before leaving, Zardari briefly told the media outside his house in downtown Dubai that he did not believe the news. "I will go myself and find out the facts," he said.

Another senior Pakistan journalist Shahid Masood of GEO TV said that Zardari had told him a day earlier that the family was planning a reunion in Lahore [Images].

The former Pakistani premier had ended her eight years of self-imposed exile in Dubai and the United Kingdom in October and had come to Pakistan.

At the press conference where she announced her decision to go back home, Benazir was flanked by her two daughters, who also spoke briefly, and her husband Zardari.  

"Nobody can keep me away from Pakistan. I have heard this morning that more than a million people are gathering in Karachi to welcome me," a defiant Benazir had told reporters and supporters at the conference.

"I pray to God to bring democracy to my country and fulfill the aspirations of the people. My party and I will rebuild civil society and set up infrastructure for providing education and livelihood at grass-roots levels," she had said.

Asked if there was threat to her life, Bhutto had said, "I have been told that there is a threat to my life if I go back. But I must tell those who would hurt me that I will not be intimidated. I do not fear the extremists, for I have put my fate in the hands of the people of Pakistan, and my faith in God".