PESHAWAR: Doctors successfully operated upon Malala Yousufzai on Wednesday and extracted a bullet from her shoulder. However, they said she was still in a critical condition.

“We have extracted the bullet. She has a head injury and remains critical,” Dr Tariq Hashim, a neurologist on the medical board constituted by the government, told Dawn by phone.

He declined to say anything further, saying he had been asked by the authorities not to speak on the issue.

Malala Yousufzai, the 14-year-old campaigner for girls’ education, was shot and wounded by the Taliban in Mingora on Tuesday.

A two-sentence statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations — the publicity wing of the military — didn’t say much except that Malala was examined by the medical board.

The military kept her medical condition under wraps, not allowing doctors to speak to media.

A government official said that arrangements had been made to send Malala for treatment abroad, but the doctors suggested she should not be moved at the moment. “That’s the situation at the moment. She is under observation and unless the doctors suggest otherwise, she will not be moved,” he said.

The official, who visited Malala in hospital, said that she remained in critical condition. “She is on ventilator.”

He said the doctors maintained that they would have to wait for a couple of days to see how she progressed before making up their mind what to do next. “She stands a 50/50 chance.”

He said the bullet had caused some damage to the brain and that the doctors would know what to do when they removed the ventilator and evaluate her condition after two days.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain, who is also on militants’ hit-list, announced a reward of Rs10 million for information leading to the capture of those behind the attack. “We will not spare them,” he told a media briefing.

He told Dawn that the doctors were providing Malala with the best medical treatment available and that she was not in a condition to be moved anywhere.

Police in Mingora said that several suspects, including the van driver and the watchman of the school where Malala studied, had been picked up. “We are continuing our investigations,” a police official said.

‘Terrorists identified’

Interior Minister Rehman Malik claimed that the terrorists involved in the attack had been identified and law enforcement agencies were ready to arrest them whenever they tried to move in Swat.

Talking to media after visiting the hospital where Malala is under treatment, he said: “We know when the terrorists had entered Swat.”

However, he avoided disclosing names of the attackers.

He asked people to share with police if they had any kind of information about any suspected person or gang in this regard so that any possible attack could be averted.

“A few days ago the law enforcement agencies foiled sabotage attempts at Serena and Marriott hotels in Islamabad,” he claimed.

He said that the government had asked Afghan President Hamid Karzai to stop infiltration from Afghanistan via Kunar to Pakistan of terrorists who were involved in killing and injuring people in Mohmand, Bajaur and Dir areas and also in Balochistan.

He said that several people involved in money laundering were supporting the Taliban and the government would soon unveil the faces of the so-called ‘white-collar’ people living in different cities of the country.

“We have directed the State Bank to identify the faces so that an action against them could be taken at the earliest,” he said, adding that the identity of such people would soon be made public.

The minister disclosed that five per cent of the $6 billion drugs business in Afghanistan and the border area was going to terrorists.

About the provision of security to such a high-profile student, he said that the inspector general of police of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had offered security thrice, but Malala’s father had refused to accept it.

“Now we offer security again. We will deploy lady police as inner cordon and male policemen as outer cordon in order to ensure protection to the family. We will impose security if her father refused again because it is a duty of the state to protect all vulnerable people,” Mr Malik maintained.

Agencies add: Private schools in the Swat Valley were closed on Wednesday to express outrage over the shooting and in solidarity with Malala, said Ahmed Shah, the chairman of an association of private schools.

Flags in front of the Mingora government headquarters were at half-staff, and police officers stood guard outside her family’s house.

Demonstrations were held in support of Malala across the country, particularly in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad.