PESHAWAR: Pakistani doctors yesterday removed a bullet from a 14-year-old child campaigner shot by the Taliban in a horrific attack condemned by national leaders and rights activists.
Malala Yousafzai, 14, is in intensive care after being shot in the head in broad daylight on a school bus Tuesday, in an assassination attempt that has appalled a country where thousands have died at the hands of Islamist extremists.
The attack took place in Mingora, the main town of the Swat valley in Pakistan’s northwest, where Malala had campaigned for the right to an education during a two-year Taliban insurgency which the army said it had crushed in 2009.
She underwent surgery to remove the bullet lodged near her shoulder at the Combined Military Hospital in the northwestern city of Peshawar, where doctors described her condition as critical.
Preparations were made to fly her abroad, but one military source said that she was currently too ill to travel.
“She is in critical condition and doctors believe she cannot travel abroad immediately,” he said, on condition of anonymity.
Doctors earlier confirmed that the bullet had been removed from her shoulder.
“We have decided not to shift her for the time being, unless we get clearance from the medical team,” Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters.
“Malala is our pride. She became an icon for the country. I pray that she lives a healthy and long life,” he said.
There has been shock and revulsion in Pakistan, where schoolchildren across the country yesterday offered prayers for her recovery.
The powerful army chief General Ashfaq Kayani visited Malala yesterday, and said it was time to “further unite and stand up to fight the propagators of such barbaric mindset and their sympathisers”.
“She has become a symbol for the values that the army, with the nation behind it, is fighting to preserve for our future generations,” he said.
“We wish to bring home a simple message: We refuse to bow before terror. We will fight, regardless of the cost, we will prevail inshallah (God willing).”
Malala won international recognition for highlighting Taliban atrocities in Swat with a blog for the BBC three years ago, when the Islamist militants led by radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah burned girls’ schools and terrorised the valley.
Her struggle resonated with tens of thousands of girls denied an education by Islamist militants across northwest Pakistan, where the government has been fighting local Taliban since 2007.
She received the first national peace award from the Pakistani government last year, and was nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize by advocacy group KidsRights Foundation in 2011.
Commentators said the brazen shooting raises serious questions about why the government did not do more to protect Malala and about the Taliban presence in Swat, three years after the army said it had defeated the uprising.
Pakistan’s lower house of parliament yesterday suspended normal proceedings to condemn the attack and pray for her recovery.
“Malala Yousafzai is a role model for all Pakistan and we should stand united to fight the elements that attacked the 14-year-old girl,” said Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar.
Amid public outrage, the Pakistani Taliban issued another statement seeking to justify the cold-blooded murder attempt on a child, saying that any female who opposes the mujahideen should be killed.
Followers of the Taliban, who controlled much of Swat from 2007-2009, have destroyed hundreds of girls’ schools across northwest Pakistan.
Malala’s shooting is likely to revive questions about whether Pakistan should take more military action to eliminate Islamist groups and whether attempts at reconciliation and peace deals in parts of the northwest are flawed.
AFP
