Pakistan vows justice for shot child activist

Pakistan yesterday vowed to bring to justice the Taliban attackers who shot a child campaigner in the head leaving her critically injured.
Pakistani doctors yesterday removed a bullet from Malala Yousafzai, 14, shot by the Taliban in a horrific attack condemned by national leaders and rights activists.
Malala is in intensive care after being shot in the head in broad daylight on a school bus on 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.
Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik vowed to bring to justice the Taliban attackers, DawnNews reported.
“No matter where the terrorists may escape, we will bring them to justice,” said Malik, speaking to reporters at a press conference in Peshawar.
Meanwhile, the provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where the incident took place, yesterday announced head money of Rs10 million for those who will help identify or provide any lead to get the attackers arrested, DawnNews reported.
Malala now faces a crucial 48 hours after undergoing the surgery.
Doctors were to decide whether to fly Malala abroad for further medical treatment. However, Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik confirmed that, according to her doctors, the girl was “out of danger” and the decision to send her abroad had been temporarily postponed as she was too ill to travel.
There has been shock and revulsion in Pakistan, where schoolchildren across the country yesterday offered prayers for her recovery.
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.
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.
Meanwhile, 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.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said the attack was "a wake-up call, if another one was needed, for those pining to appease the extremists and going out of their way to advocate making peace with the Taliban".
The United States, which uses drone attacks to target Taliban and al-Qaeda in Pakistan, also condemned the shooting as "barbaric" and "cowardly".