The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan has warned that those found selling I am Malala — the book authored by teenage rights activist Malala Yousufzai — will face serious action.
The TTP, which has vowed to attack her again if it get a chance, claimed that she had not performed any act of bravery but swapped her religion Islam with secularism for which she is being rewarded.
The banned group’s spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said they knew that 16-year-old Malala would get awards from the “enemies of Islam”, the Dawn reported.
“Malala abandoned Islam for secularism for which she is being given awards,” he said, adding that the media and the international community should keep in mind that students of Jamia Hafsa (Lal Masjid controversy) were never given any award despite their “immense bravery”.
“The Taliban will not lose an opportunity to kill Malala Yousufzai and those who were found selling her book will be targeted,” he said. She had miraculously escaped an assassination bid by the TTP last October in Swat. Malala managed to stay alive to become a global ambassador for the right of all children – girls as well as boys – to go to school.
In an interview with the BBC, Malala dismissed the threats against her life and repeated her desire to return to Pakistan from UK, where she was flown for treatment after the attack and where she now goes to school. She first rose to prominence during the Taliban’s 2007-09 rule in Pakistan’s northwestern Swat valley with a blog for the BBC Urdu service chronicling the rigours of daily life under the Islamists. (PTI)