By Annabel Symington

Four months after the Taliban's failed assassination attempt of 15-year-old Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, the two girls injured in the same attack are struggling to regain a normal life.

Kainat Riaz, 16, and Shazia Ramzan, 14, were sitting on either side of Malala squeezed on the bench of the school bus when a Taliban gunman attacked the vehicle, opening fire on the schoolgirl education activist. Malala was shot in the head and neck. Kainat was shot through her upper right arm and required four stitches. Shazia was injured in her left hand and shoulder.

They both returned to school two months after the attack – under the watchful gaze of the police.

Kainat sat next to me on a hard sofa in her family’s front room that serves as both sitting room and bedroom. As we spoke she held a torch over my notebook so I could take notes during our conversation. The power was out – a common occurrence in Pakistan.

“Before, I was a normal girl,” says Kainat, “I was totally free. Now I am afraid to go out and can’t go anywhere freely.” She says she remembers the attack like it was a bad dream.

Outside the front door, three police officers stand guard. A further two are positioned in the alley that runs along the back of the family home. Everywhere Kainat goes, her police guard trails her.

Kainat’s father, Riaz Ahmad, a primary school teacher in Amankot, a village on the edge of Mingora, a town in northern Pakistan, says he varies his route to work because he has been warned that he too has become a target.

On 4 December 2012, a blast in Kainat’s neighbourhood killed one woman and injured a further six. The police investigation said that the blast was caused by a gas leak, but many in the community believe that it was a targeted attack aimed at Kainat.

“After the blast, the neighbours said that it was because of me and told my father we had to move,” says Kainat, “They said that I would attract more attacks.”

Shazia lives on the other side of Mingora, down a narrow alley behind Gulshan Chowk, a local marketplace, where her father runs a small bakery. She says that local residents also told her father that the family had to move because Shazia posed a threat to the whole community.

Neither family has moved, and Mingora has been relatively peaceful since the Oct. 9 attack. The Pakistan Army has maintained tight control over the area since a 2009 operation to purge the Taliban from the region, which had become their stronghold. The endless roadblocks manned by heavily armed soldiers serve as a reminder of the potential for violence.

Annabel Symington for The Wall Street Journal Kainat has a note written in her diary from the Interior Minister Rehman Malik dated 7 days after the attack.

Shazia has to ask permission from the two policemen who sit in a small alcove to the left of the front door to the family home every time she wants to go anywhere.

The policemen follow her on her way to school each day. “My friends say I am like Kareena Kapoor from ‘Bodyguard,’” says Shazia with a giggle, referring to the Bollywood film about a girl who devises an elaborate plan to evade her bodyguard.

Her father, Muhammad Ramzam, says that any time someone comes to visit he is meant to tell the police guards – a challenging task in a culture where family members constantly flit between the homes of different branches of the family.

There are sounds of women giggling in the next room. When Shazia takes me through to introduce me to her mother, I find two sisters, a sister-in-law and four cousins also sat in the open-air kitchen. Shazia’s six-year-old sister and eight-year-old cousin are trying to apply bright pink lipstick to each other, which prompts shrieks of laughter from the adults.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack a string of politicians visited the girls in hospital. President Asif Ali Zardari said the government would pay for the girls’ medical costs.

Riaz Ahmad, Kainat’s father, says the provincial government also promised help pay for Kainat’s school fees, and that Rehman Malik, the interior minister, promised to get Kainat’s brother, Zeeshan Riaz, aged 18, a job in the local passport office. Kainat has a note from Mr. Malik written in her diary.

The provincial government did pay for the girls’ medical bills, but no other support has materialized. Zeeshan remains unemployed.

Annabel Symington for The Wall Street Journal Shazia Ramzan at home.

“We paid for their treatment and provide them security,” Mian Iftikhar Hussain, information minister for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, told India Real Time, “There is nothing else for the government to do.” He declined to comment on how much the treatment and security had cost the provincial government.

Mr. Malik could not be reached for comment.

Kainat is about to sit her final exams, and hopes to go to college in the fall. She wants to become a doctor, and her father has said that he will find a way to pay for her to continue her studies.

She says that her right arm hurts when she writes – a constant reminder of the attack that nearly claimed the life of her best friend.

She believes that Malala, who is getting medical treatment in the United Kingdom, will return to Pakistan once she has recovered. “She belongs to Swat,” Kainat says.

Shazia thinks that it is better if Malala doesn’t return to Mingora. “It is too dangerous for her to return,” she says, “But I don’t think that she will forget us.”

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