London, June 10 : PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif and Pakistan’s cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan are learnt to have cut short their London trip, and are returning home to take part in the long march being organised by the bar and the bench for restoration of the deposed judges.

The two leaders told the press here after an hour-long meeting here on Monday that it was the responsibility of the entire nation to join the campaign for the restoration of the judges deposed illegally and unconstitutionally by President Pervez Musharraf on November 3 last year, reported The News.

Nawaz who is here to be with his ailing wife and Imran who normally spends the summer in the UK with his two sons seem to have cut short their stay to be in Pakistan for the long march.

Nawaz meaningfully kept quite when Imran bitterly attacked PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari for what he said providing protection to Musharraf, while at the same time, blocking restoration of the judges to protect the NRO.

Nawaz said his party had no plans to withdraw from the coalition as that would allow the forces opposed to democracy led by Musharraf to once again start playing their tricks. But, he said, his party had been exhorting the PPP to fulfil the mandate of February 18 by restoring the judges and getting rid of Musharraf.

Imran said that although his party had a number of disagreements with the PML-N, but “we are bound by a common objective which was restoration of the judiciary and ouster of Musharraf”.

Thousands of Pakistani lawyers gathered in Karachi at the start of the “long march” - actually a motor convoy - that will cross the country, finishing outside parliament in Islamabad on Thursday. The lawyers want the government to restore about 45 judges sacked by Musharraf last November, including his bitter rival, the former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. (ANI)