Malala Yousafzai, the global icon for girl’s education visits Pak’s Swat

Malala Yousafzai, the messenger of peace and the youngest Nobel Prize winner, on Saturday arrived in her hometown in Swat Valley, Pakistan. This is the first time she visited her hometown after she was shot in the head by Taliban militants for advocating girls’ education.

According to Pakistan Daily Dawn, Malala said, “I have dreamed of returning to Pakistan for the past five years,” with tears in her eyes.

She arrived in the Swat district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province along with her parents amid tight security. She was there for an entire day.

Currently, she has been put up in Circuit House and the venue is surrounded by armed forces.

Malala will be visiting her Makan Bagh home in Mingora, which is her ancestral home and will  also inaugurate a girls school in Shangla district, the sources said.

She plans to return to permanently return to Pakistan once her studies are complete, Malala told the Pakistani media on Friday. The Nobel Laureate’s itinerary will be kept under tght wraps owing to security concerns.

In an interview with Geo TV, Pakistan’s largest private broadcaster, the 20-year-old aid that the country, which has battled extremism for long is becoming better.

“Definitely, there is a difference,” is what she feels in the Pakistan that she had to five years ago, when she was shot by Taliban gunmen and the Pakistan of today.

The oxford student wants to run for Prime Minister one day. “It is my plan to come back to my country after completing my education. I have equal rights on it like any other Pakistani,” she added.

Malala is a widely respected icon for girl’s education internationally but shares a divided opinion in her country, where some Pakistani conservatives see her as a Western agent with a mission to defame her country.

However, many of the people who live in the areas nearby her home were happy to see her come back and look forward to Malala’s return to her nation.