Islamabad: Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousufzai, wounded in a Taliban gun attack and currently under treatment at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, has asked the district authorities in Swat to change the name of Malala Girls College there due to security reasons, a report said Thursday.
Following the attack on her in October, chief minister of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province Amir Haider Hoti had announced the decision to rename Saidu Sharif Girls College in Swat after the 15-year old girl education activist.
But students of the college had held demonstrations inside their institution against the decision, saying it would expose them to danger and that the government should establish a new college and name it after Malaa Yousufzai.
Swat’s district coordination officer Kamran Rehman told the BBC Urdu Service that Malala Yousafzai had telephoned him and conveyed her apprehensions regarding security of students of the college, according to a report on the network.
The official said Malala told him that security of students is important to her and suggested that the name of the college be changed.
The report quoted college principal Talat Qamar as saying she has no objection to changing the name and whatever decision is taken by the government will be acceptable.