Lahore, Nov 14: Pakistan Tereek-i-Insaaf chief and former cricketer Imran Khan has emerged from hiding on Wednesday for the first time since emergency rule was imposed, witnesses have said.

Imran appeared at the Punjab University in Lahore ahead of a planned protest against President Pervez Musharraf and was immediately pushed inside a campus building by a crowd of students, witnesses said.

Earlier, PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto contacted Imran Khan on Tuesday, a Pakistani daily reported.

The News quoted the cricketer-turned-politician as telling Geo TV that the statement from Benazir Bhutto regarding the boycott of elections was a welcome one.

Though he said her statement is a bit belated, Imran said: "I welcome her statement in this connection. "

He demanded all political parties to step forward with joint strategy until the courts are restored in the country.

Imran had reportedly managed to escape from his house here on November 3 after he was put under house arrest in the wake of the imposition of emergency.

"He was detained along with eight supporters at the house. The supporters are at home but he has slipped away, " his close relative told a foreign news agency.

Imran was put under house arrest hours after Musharraf tried to justify the imposition of emergency in the country and was kept confined at his home in Lahore.

The former skipper of the Pakistan Cricket Team, which brought the World Cup to Pakistan in 1992, had launched a verbal diatribe on Saturday against Musharraf, soon after the imposition of emergency.

Imran had demanded death penalty for Musharraf for "committing treason. " (ANI)