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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Pakistan bids adieu to teen killed in Texas

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Karachi: Hundreds mourned a Pakistani exchange student killed in a mass shooting at a Texas high school last week during her burial in Karachi on Wednesday.


Sabika Sheikh was among the 10 people gunned down at a high school in Santa Fe last Friday when a heavily armed student opened fire on classmates. Relatives sobbed and hugged as Sheikh’s remains arrived at her family home in a casket draped with a Pakistani flag. The body was then taken to a public meeting ground where hundreds gathered to say prayers and pay their respects before the burial at a nearby cemetery. “My daughter is a martyr and martyrs don’t die,” Sheikh’s father Abdul Aziz said after the prayers. Officials participating the ceremony labelled her killing an act of terrorism. “The whole nation stands by the Pakistani girl who was martyred in a terrorist attack in the US. May God give patience to her parents and family,” provincial governor Mohammad Zubair told reporters after the funeral.


Hours earlier, a Pakistani honour guard escorted Sheikh’s casket off a plane at Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport during a ceremony overseen by government officials and US consul John E Warner.


Following the funeral, Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai — who was shot by the Taliban in 2012 for advocating girls’ rights to education — also weighed in, calling for an end to school violence. “I hope leaders in the US, Pakistan and around the world will do justice to the lives of Sabika, her classmates and their teachers by doing more to stop violence in schools,” said Yousafzai in a statement. — Reuters


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