DHAKA: An association of Pakistani schools held an ‘I am not Malala’ day on Monday, condemning young Nobel peace laureate Malala Yousafzai for what it called her support for controversial novelist Salman Rushdie.

Education campaigner Malala was shot in the head by the Taliban in October 2012 but recovered and went on to win this year’s Nobel peace prize.

The 17-year-old has been hailed around the world for standing up for girls’ rights to education, but the response to her in Pakistan has not been universally positive, with some seeing her as a ‘Western agent’ on a mission to shame her country.

The All Pakistan Private Schools Federation last year barred its members from buying Malala’s memoir ‘I am Malala’ because of what the group said was its ‘anti-Pakistan and anti-Islam content’, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 1952 HRS, NOV 10, 2014