Justice for Malala?

Army needs to be commended for locating, detaining Malala’s attackers. It is now upto the government to prosecute them

When the Taliban failed to kill Malala Yousufzai on October 9, 2012, they could have little imagined how the story would play out. She survived the attempt to murder her by the Taliban (who both claimed and justified their actions in unrepentant fashion) as did her two schoolmates, Kainat Riaz and Shazia Ramzan. Kainat and Shazia were relatively lightly wounded, Malala critically so. She was eventually airlifted to the UK where she received treatment at a hospital specialising in treating battlefield injuries, recovered, co-authored a bestselling book, made an address to the United Nations and was dubbed by a German newspaper “the most famous teenager in the world.” Kainat and Shazia led less prominent lives and both now live and study in the UK. For better or worse Malala is a global icon, her life and its story only in its early chapters.

The day after the shooting the then interior minister, Rehman Malik, announced that the identity of the assassin was known, and Atta Ullah Khan was arrested as were six other men but all were later released for lack of evidence. Little more was heard of the hunt for the attempted killers until the announcement on September 12, 2014 by the Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) that those allegedly behind the attack had been identified and arrested. Ten people are in custody, six have been named and all will stand trial in an anti-terrorism court.

Details of how the military came to identify and apprehend the men are scanty, but it was said that an “intelligence-led” operation with the military and the police working together led to her attackers. The men were operating on the instruction of Mullah Fazlullah, leader of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and had plans to kill 22 other prominent people from the Swat Valley.

Whilst the world feted and hailed her, Malala Yousufzai was the object of considerable vilification in her own country. She was accused of being a CIA spy, of never having been shot at all and the entire incident staged and she and her family mere tools of American imperialism. The reality is altogether more prosaic — she had become a threat and a challenge to the TTP so they decided to kill her. They have reiterated that desire on a number of occasions and were she to return she would be a dead woman walking. Her father, Ziauddin Yousufzai, has issued a statement saying the detentions are ‘good news’ for his family and for the civilised world, and expressing the hope that the lives of those affected by terrorism in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa are eventually beneficiaries as well.

Interesting as the story of the arrests may be, the DG ISPR was briefing about the wider success of the Zarb-e-Azb operation in North Waziristan, on which there has been virtually no independent reporting. More than 1,000 militants are said to have been killed in 2,200 operations, those that attacked the Ziarat Residency arrested, and the militants who attacked Quetta airport and Khalid naval base arrested. A “proper strategy” is being chalked out with the civilian government, said the DG ISPR. The ordinary man might wonder why it is that it took so long for all parties concerned to get to the ‘chalking out’ stage of developing a common civil-military policy for combating terrorism and extremism in Pakistan. The DG ISPR also put down a marker saying that… “The army has nothing to do with the government’s affairs” — this in respect of the ongoing protests in Islamabad — which would be interesting if it were true.

The attempted murder of Malala Yousufzai and its global consequences are, in big picture terms, a footnote to the existential struggle for the heart and collective mind of the state of Pakistan itself. Much talk needs to be done. The army needs to be commended for locating and detaining Malala’s attackers and it is now upto the government to prosecute them and the courts to convict them.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 14^th, 2014.

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