A Taliban militant involved in the shooting of Malala Yousafzai is shot dead during a Pakistan police shootout.
Counter-terrorism officers faced off with four gunmen in the southern port in Karachi, one of which was a commander of the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
All four were killed in the gunfight including the commander – identified as Khursheed – who played a part in the 2012 attack in Punjab on the child rights activist and Nobel Laureate.
Pakistani rights activist Malala Yousafzai gestures after addressing the media in Birmingham, central England on October 10, 2014. One of the men involved in her shooting was gunned down by police officers in Pakistan
Pakistani security personnel cordon off the area of an attack in Karachi, Pakistan, Saturday, Sept 2, 2017. Pakistani police said two gunmen targeting an ethnic party lawmaker after Eid prayers instead gunned down two others, including a child, in the southern port city of Karachi. It is not clear whether or not this is the same siege in which the terrorists were killed
Senior Superintendent of Police Rao Anwar told the New York Post: ‘I am going to share good news with you that a cousin of TTP chief Mullah Fazlullah has been killed.
‘Khursheed was involved in various incidents of terrorism, including attacks on education activist Malala Yousafzai as well as military and police in Karachi’s Quaidabad area.
‘All the militants were members of the TTP Swat and were planning to carry out terrorist activities in the city.’
The terrorist was identified by documents found in his possession and the names of the remaining militants have yet to be revealed.
Pakistani Nobel Peace Prize 2014 laureate Malala Yousafzai is pictured during a meeting with students of the Monterrey Institute of Technology in Mexico City on August 31, 2017
Nobel Peace Prize laureates Kailash Satyarthi (right) and Malala Yousafzai display their medals and diplomas during the Nobel Peace Prize awards ceremony at the City Hall in Oslo, Norway, on December 10, 2014
Miss Yousafzai was barely 11 years old when she began championing girls’ education, speaking out in TV interviews.
The Taliban had overrun her home town of Mingora, terrorizing residents, threatening to blow up girls’ schools, ordering teachers and students into the all-encompassing burqas.
She was critically injured in October 2012, when a Taliban gunman boarded her school bus and shot her in the head.
A bullet narrowly missed her brain and she was later airlifted to Britain for specialist treatment at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, where she underwent numerous surgeries and made a strong recovery.
Malala currently lives with her father, mother and two brothers in Birmingham, and after excelling in her exams she is off to Oxford to study.
She has since written a book, I Am Malala, spoken to international audiences and on television and has been been showered with human rights prizes, including the European Parliament’s Sakharov Award.