Will be more Malalas if militants not destroyed: Pakistani leader

Pakistan's Awami National Party general secretary Arbab Muhammad Tahir Khan Khalil Friday expressed fears of repeats of Malala-like incidents until there was an end to "militants" in Pakistan.

Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai was shot by the Taliban for promoting education for girls in Pakistan's Khyber PukhtoonKhwa province where extremists had issued a diktat banning education for females.

"There will be no end to cases like Malala until militants are destroyed in Pakistan. Ironically, no steps have been taken by the new regime to tackle it," Khalil told IANS on the sidelines of an event in the capital which showed solidarity with the cause against religious extremism.

Khalil is from Khyber PukhtoonKhwa.

The event was organised by Khudai Khidmatgar organisation in which people, including children, formed a human chain to protest religious extremism.

Khudai Khidmatgar leader Faisal Khan said: "Malala and Ishrat Jahan have become powerful symbols of the discriminated and disadvantaged fairer sex. These were innocent girls who became the target of extreme reactionary forces for no fault of theirs."

The UN has designated July 12 as Malala Day, which also happens to be her birthday.