LONDON - British boxer Amir Khan will travel to Pakistan before the end of the year to show support for the victims of the army school massacre in Peshawar.
Pakistani Taliban militants killed 141 people in the attack on 16 December. The WBC Silver welterweight champion’s parents were born in Pakistan and he donated boxing shorts worth £30k to help pay for the school to be rebuilt. “I just want to speak the truth and tell people what is happening is wrong,” Khan, 28, said.
“I will be going to Pakistan between Christmas and New Year,” he revealed. “Talking about this stuff could be threatening for me, but I just want to speak the truth and tell people what is happening is wrong. “I would not consider cancelling the trip – you can’t hide away. Look, everything is in God’s hands and you cannot hide away from life. If something is going to happen it will happen.
“Everything is written for you, I believe, and you just have to go out there and do what you have to do and carry on with your life. You cannot let things like this stop you. “I think it’s more important now than ever to go over there. I think it will send a statement to a lot of people that Amir Khan is going there to make a difference. I want it to be a better country. It’s just a shame – I cannot believe how sick some people are.”
“The news hurt me even more having a little girl,” he said. “Imagine sending my daughter to school and hearing that she got killed. Innocent kids, killed over nothing. They had nothing to do with anything, they had not done anything, and the Taliban went and killed them.
“They are killing their own people and I’m thinking to myself, ‘Why are these people doing that? Have they got no brains?’ Setting the teachers on fire in front of the kids? These people are ruthless. “It’s very disgusting seeing or hearing stuff like this. You can never think people will be that sick in their mind.”
“It is tough,” he said. “But one thing boxing has done is educate me more, made me a little bit smarter. It has made me realise that being a fighter, being a champion, I have other commitments in the world.
“I’m a Pakistani so in a way I feel like I have the country behind me. I have to be behind them as well. It makes me feel like whatever I say, it can make a difference. I can say things and it will make a difference across the world.
“I’m the way I am; I’m not fake in any way and I have a heart and a good family. I’m one of those guys who will speak the truth if I think it’s wrong. Some people don’t want to talk about the Taliban and stuff like that because they think, ‘We don’t want to get into those politics’. But I’m open, I want to speak the truth.”