Malala visits Pakistan for first time since Taliban attack in 2012

International desk – Malala Yousafzai, the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner, has returned to Pakistan for the first time since being shot by Taliban militants in 2012.

Pakistani television broadcast video that appeared to show her with her parents at Islamabad’s Benazir Bhutto International Airport under tight security.

The trip is expected to last four days and she arrived with officials from her Malala Fund group, local media report.

She is expected to hold meetings with Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi. Details of the trip have been kept secret in view of the sensitivity, Pakistani officials said international media.

Ms Yousafzai, now aged 20 and a vocal human rights activist, was shot in the head by a gunman for campaigning for female education in 2012.

Since her recovery, Ms Yousafzai has continued to speak up for children’s education and rights around the world.

She set up the Malala Fund with her father Ziauddin, with the goal of “working for a world where every girl can learn and lead without fear”

In 2014 she became the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She and Indian activist Kailash Satyarthi were jointly awarded the Prize for their efforts for children’s rights.

She has continued campaigning while pursuing her studies, and last year earned a place at Oxford University.

Despite security efforts in recent years, the Pakistani Taliban has remained active.

They have been blamed for a number of deadly attacks on schools and colleges that have killed hundreds.

Yousafzai repeatedly expressed her wishes to return to Pakistan, describing her hometown of Swat as “paradise on earth” in an interview earlier this month.

“I have received a lot of support in my country,” she told US talk-show host David Letterman in a Netflix special. She has been living in England.

“There is this lust for change. People want to see change in their country. I am already doing work there but I want my feet to touch that land.”

Pakistan is religiously conservative and late last year Yousafzai was trolled online after a picture of her in Oxford wearing western clothes – jeans and heeled boots – was shared on social media.

newsnextbd.com/