Islamabad: A day after a teenage rights activist was shot in the head by Taliban militants, Pakistan Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani on Wednesday condemned the attack on the girl as a “heinous act of terrorism” and warned that it had exposed the “extremist mindset” confronting the country.
Kayani visited a military hospital in Peshawar to meet 14-year-old schoolgirl Malala Yousufzai, who was shot and seriously injured by the militants during an attack on Tuesday in the former Taliban stronghold of Swat, located 160 km from Islamabad.
The powerful army chief used the occasion to send out a message to the militants, saying incidents like the attack on Malala “clearly expose the extremist mindset the nation is facing.” Kayani said the terrorists had underestimated the “resolve and resilience” of the people. “It is time we further unite and stand up to fight the propagators of such barbaric mindset and their sympathisers,” 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 Insha Allah,” Kayani was quoted as saying in a statement issued by the military. However, the Army Chief did not directly refer in his remarks to the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, which has claimed responsibility for the attack on Malala.
Kayani said Malala had ”become a symbol for the values that the army, with the nation behind it, is fighting to preserve for our future generations. These are the intrinsic values of an Islamic society, based on the principles of liberty, justice and equality of man.”
Kayani noted that this was not the first time the militants had targeted children and referred to a ‘fidayeen’ attack on a mosque in the garrison city of Rawalpindi as “a painful reminder of their bloodlust.”
Though the Taliban often project themselves as champions of Islam and ‘Shariah’, Kayani said the militants had “no respect even for the golden words of the Prophet that ‘the one who is not kind to children, is not amongst us’.”
Kayani further said: “In attacking Malala, the terrorists have failed to grasp that she is not only an individual but an icon of courage and hope, who vindicates the great sacrifices that the people of Swat and the nation gave for wresting the valley from the scourge of terrorism.”
The Pakistan Army has often been accused by US and Afghan officials of being soft towards certain Taliban factions like the Haqqani network, which is based in the troubled North Waziristan tribal region.
A group of doctors successfully performed a three-hour-long surgery on the 14-year-old to remove the bullet lodged near her spine on Wednesday morning. The banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has claimed responsibility for the attack , saying she was targeted because of her “pro-West” views and for “negative propaganda” against militants. (PTI)