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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Suspects arrested in Taliban shooting
Pakistan teen, 14, remains stable
Shakil Adil / The Associated Press Pakistani children pray for the recovery of Malala Yousufzai (seen on poster) at a candlelight vigil in Karachi, Pakistan, Friday. (CP)
MINGORA, Pakistan -- Pakistani police have arrested a number of suspects in the case of a 14-year-old girl shot and wounded by the Taliban for promoting education for girls and criticizing the fundamentalist Islamic movement, officials said Friday.
The shooting of Malala Yousufzai along with two classmates while they were on their way home from school Tuesday horrified people in Pakistan and internationally. It has been followed by an outpouring of support for a girl who earned the enmity of the Taliban for publicizing their acts and speaking about the importance of education for girls.
The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the shooting, saying that the girl was promoting "western thinking." Late on Thursday, a spokesman for one of the group's branches in the country's north decided two months ago to kill Yousufzai in a carefully planned attack after her family ignored repeated warnings.
Police have been questioning people in the town of Mingora, in the Swat Valley, where the shooting took place.
Mingora police chief Afzal Khan Afridi said arrests had been made, but he declined to give any details about the number of people detained or what role they're suspected of having in the shooting. He said he did not want to endanger the ongoing investigation.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters Friday the two gunmen who staged the attack were not among those arrested, but he said investigators had identified the masterminds of the shooting and efforts were under way to capture all those involved.
The Taliban spokesman, Sirajuddin Ahmad, said Yousufzai's family had been warned three times -- the most recent warning coming last week -- before the decision was made to kill her.
Ahmad said local Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah and his deputies selected three attackers, including two trained sharpshooters, who carefully studied the girl's route home from school.
Even before the Taliban took over the Swat Valley, Fazlullah's radio broadcasts spread fear among residents in the area. The group first started to exert its influence in 2007 and quickly extended its reach to much of the valley by the next year. They set about imposing their will on residents by forcing men to grow beards, preventing women from going to the market and blowing up many schools -- the majority for girls.
Malala wrote about these practices in a journal for the BBC under a pseudonym when she was just 11. After the Taliban were pushed out of the valley in 2009 by the Pakistani military, she became even more outspoken in advocating for girls' education. She appeared frequently in the media and was given one of the country's highest honours for civilians for her bravery.
The girl was initially airlifted from Mingora to a military hospital in the frontier city of Peshawar, where doctors removed a bullet from her neck.
Maj. Gen. Asim Saleem Bajwa said she is being kept on a ventilator and is in stable condition.
-- The Associated Press
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 13, 2012 A25
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