PM vows 'complete security' to Malala in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has said that Pakistan will  provide Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai complete security as well as respect in the country.

He was speaking at a ceremony in honor of Malala at the Prime Minister Office in Islamabad today (Thursday).

He said when Malala moved out of the country, terrorism was at its peak. However, with the strong resolve of the nation and security forces, this scourge has been crushed. Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said two hundred thousand troops are still actively engaged in this war.

Abbasi said Pakistan had fought a successful war against terrorism and rid the country of this menace. The prime minister said more than six thousand troops and thousands of civilians have rendered their lives to bring peace and normalcy in the country.

We request Malala Yousafzai to spread the message of peace as a messenger of Pakistan in the whole world, said the PM.

Earlier, speaking in the ceremony Malala Yousafzai said she had a dream of returning to the country for the last five years. She said Pakistan’s future lies in its new generation which must be educated.

She said Malala Fund has spent over six million dollars on female education in Pakistan.

Malala returned Pakistan by a foreign airlines flight after her six-year stay abroad. Stringent security measures were taken at Benazir International Airport here on arrival of the Nobel peace laureate.

Malala Yousafzai will stay in Islamabad for four days and will meet key national leaders.

Now a celebrated girls’ education activist, Malala left Pakistan in 2012 after surviving an assassination attempt by Taliban who attacked her for daring to speak up for the right of girls to attend school in Swat, her hometown.

In 2013, Yousafzai and her father Ziauddin co-founded the Malala Fund to bring awareness to the social and economic impact of girls’ education worldwide.

On December 10, 2014, Yousafzai received Nobel Peace Prize with Indian children’s rights and education advocate Kailash Satyarthi.

Yousafzai, has been living in the UK since October 2012. She was shifted from Pakistan to a hospital in Birmingham in a precarious condition after she had sustained a bullet in her head in a targeted attack by the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Swat. She was on her way home in a school van with other girls after taking an exam when the TTP men opened fire on them. Two other girls also sustained gunshot wounds.