Nobel peace laureate Malala Yousafzai returned to Pakistan on March 28. This is her first visit to her native country since she was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman for advocating education for girls in 2012.
Details of Malala¡¯s visit to her home country have been kept under the wraps given the sensitive surroundings. The visit is expected to last four days and includes a meeting with Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi.
The 20-year-old student was accompanied by her parents and escorted through Islamabad's Benazir Bhutto International Airport under tight security.
Malala has become a global symbol for human rights and a vocal campaigner for girls' education since a gunman boarded her school bus in the Swat valley on October 9, 2012, asked "Who is Malala?" and shot her.?
Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, she has continued her campaigning while pursuing her studies at Oxford University.
Many Pakistanis were pleased to have Malala back in home despite ingoing fears.
However, there¡¯s a share of conservatives who are not happy with her return and view her as a Western agent on a mission to shame her country.?
Malala began campaigning?when she was just 11 and started writing her blog -- under a pseudonym -- for the BBC's Urdu service in 2009 about life under the Taliban in Swat, where they were banning girls' education.
In 2007, Islamist militants took over the area, which Malala affectionately called "My Swat", and imposed a brutal, bloody rule.