Crowds rally for shot teenager

TENS OF thousands of people rallied in Pakistan’s largest city yesterday in support of a 14-year-old girl who was shot and critically wounded by the Taliban for promoting girls’ education and criticising the militant group.

The demonstration in the southern city of Karachi was by far the largest since Malala Yousufzai and two of her classmates were shot on October 9 while returning home from school in Pakistan’s north-west.

The attack horrif ied people inside and outside Pakistan and sparked hope among some that it would prompt the government to intensify its fight against the Taliban and their allies.

But protests against the shooting have been small until now, usually attracting no more than a few hundred people.

That response pales in comparison to the tens of thousands of people who held violent protests in Pakistan last month against a film produced in the United States that denigrated Islam’s Prophet Mohammed.

Demonstrations in support of Malala — and against rampant militant violence in the country in general — have also been fairly small compared with those focused on issues such as US drone attacks and the Nato supply route to A fghanistan that runs through Pakistan.

One of the exceptions is the political party that organised the rally in Karachi, the Muttahida Quami Movement.

The party’s chief, A ltaf Hussain, criticised Islamic and other mainstream political parties for failing to organise rallies to protest the attack againstYousufzai.

He called the Taliban gunmen who shot the girl “beasts” and said the shooting was an attack on “the ideology of Pakistan”.

Many of the demonstrators carried the young girl’s picture and banners praising her bravery and expressing solidarity.

Malala Yousufzai.