Rawalpindi: Pakistanis at mosques across the country prayed on Friday for the recovery of a schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taliban as doctors said the next two days were critical.
The shooting of 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai who campaigned for the right to an education has been denounced worldwide and by the Pakistani authorities, who have offered a reward of more than $100,000 for the capture of her attackers.
Ahmad Shah, police station chief in the northwestern town of Mingora where she was shot, has said nearly 200 people were detained over the shooting, including the bus driver and a school watchman, but most had been released.
The attack has sickened Pakistan, where Yousafzai won international prominence with a blog for the BBC that highlighting atrocities under the Taliban who terrorised the Swat valley from 2007 until a 2009 army offensive.
Activists say the shooting should be a wake-up call to whose who advocate appeasement with the Taliban, but analysts suspect there will be no seismic shift in the country.
Schools opened with prayers for Yousafzai on Friday and special prayers at mosques across the country for her speedy recovery at the country’s top military hospital in the city of Rawalpindi, where she is still on a ventilator.
Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf visited Yousafzai, paying tribute to her and two friends who were also wounded when a gunman boarded their school bus on Tuesday and opened fire.
