'Bhutto out of Pak, not to return before polls'

Pakistan People's Party (PPP) chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has left on a foreign trip and will not be present in the country when it goes to polls on May 11, according to a media report.

Pakistan People's Party (PPP) chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has left on a foreign trip and will not be present in the country when it goes to polls on May 11, according to a media report.

Bilawal, 24, will not address any rallies or meetings ahead of the general election due to threats to his life, sources in the PPP were quoted as saying in the report on the website of the Dawn newspaper.

Senior PPP leader Taj Haider confirmed that consensus had been reached within the party and Bilawal had been advised not to lead the poll campaign due to serious security threats.

"We have already lost Benazir Bhutto and will not risk losing Bilawal. The threats to his life are very real," Haider said on Friday.

He did not say where Bilawal was at the moment.

However, the report quoted sources in PPP as saying that he had left Pakistan earlier this week and would not be returning before May 11.

Former premier Benazir Bhutto was killed in 2007 by a suicide bomber, just before the last general elections.

In a video message released on April 23, the scion of the influential Bhutto family and son of President Asif Ali Zardari said he would join the PPP's election campaign but not lead it.

He claimed the murderers of his grandfather Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and mother wanted to "eliminate" him as well.