The internationally acclaimed activist Malala Yousafzai, fighting for girls’ right to an education, was surrounded by heavy security on Saturday as she briefly visited her home in Pakistan’s restive Swat Valley, according to the Associated Press.
The 20-year-old was 14 when she was shot in a school van and subsequently travelled to the UK for treatment.
Reuters reported. That roads were blocked off as the helicopter landed at a government guest house about 1 km from her former home, Reuters reported.
Also, her brother Atal Yousafzai and the principal of all-boys Swat Cadet College, Guli Bagh, were accompanying her, according to AFP.
Her uncle said she also planned to meet with friends and relatives before returning to Britain on Monday.
In 2012—after Pakistan’s army had wrested back much of the Swat region from the Taliban—a gunman boarded the van, asked “who is Malala?” and shot the widely-known teenage advocate of girls’ education.
She had written an anonymous blog for the BBC Urdu service as a schoolgirl during the Taliban’s harsh imposition of Islamic law. Two other students were also hurt during that attack that culminated in numerous suspects being acquitted.
Yousafzai was treated in Birmingham, where she completed her schooling and in 2014, became the youngest-ever winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Now an Oxford University student, Yousafzai told Pakistani Geo TV on Friday that conditions had improved and she planned to one day run for prime minister after completing her education. “It is my country and I have equal rights in it like any other Pakistani,” she said.
On Thursday, she was in tears as she delivered a speech saying it was a “dream” to be back in her home country after so many years.
