Pakistani cleric arrested over threats to kill Malala Yousafzai

Police arrested a Pakistani cleric after he made threats to kill activist Malala Yousafzai, The Associated Press reported on Thursday.

In a video, cleric Mufti Sardar Ali Haqqani threatened to target Yousafzai in a suicide attack when she returns to Pakistan, citing her recent comments on marriage in an interview with British Vogue magazine as the reason. 

This Man, pretending to be a religious scholar, is openly threatening to kill @Malala in suicide attack.

He is a habitual hate speaker but allowed to use an important platform to mislead people. He has also been involved in disinformation campaign about Covid-19 vaccines. pic.twitter.com/BSQYMDN6Za

— Naimat Khan (@NKMalazai) June 9, 2021

 “I still don’t understand why people have to get married. If you want to have a person in your life, why do you have to sign marriage papers, why can’t it just be a partnership?,” Yousafzai said to Vogue in the AP report. 

Yousafzai’s comments angered many Pakistani Islamists and clerics on social media. Under Islamic law, couples cannot live together outside of marriage, the AP noted.

Pakistani Police Chief Waseem Sajjad told the newswire service that they arrested Haqqani on Wednesday at Lakki Marwat, a district in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. 

Yousafzai, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 for her advocacy efforts, has been living in London since 2012 after Pakistani Taliban shot and seriously wounded her at the age of 15 for campaigning for girls’ education.