Malala Yousufzai – the story of Pakistan’s heroine in photos

THE Taliban shot 15-year-old Malala Yousufzai in the head on October 9 2012. The gunman wanted Malala dead. Her crime? Promoting education for women and girls in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. At the suggestion of her father, she had blogged anonymously for the BBC. Malala made a stand. After the assassination attempt, she was flown from Mingora to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. A few things make you proud to be British. This is one. Malala is lucky to be alive. She will undergo reconstructive cranial surgery. For now and the foreseeable future she will live with her father Ziauddin, mother Toorpekai and younger brothers Khushal and Atul in the Midlands. The Pakistani government made Ziauddin education attaché at the Pakistani consulate in Birmingham, a three-year post, a move that means the family can legally live in the UK. Ziauddin is an English graduate from a well-established local family who set up a private girls’ school. No-one has been arrested for the heinous crime. This is the story in photos:

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FILE - In this Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2012 file photo, 14-year-old schoolgirl Malala Yousufzai, is moved to a helicopter to be taken to Peshawar for treatment in Mingora, Swat Valley, Pakistan. Despite widespread outrage over the Taliban shooting a female teenage activist, Pakistani leaders and opinion makers are divided over whether the government should respond by targeting the militants' last major sanctuary along the Afghan border. (AP Photo/Sherin Zada, File)