KARACHI - Hundreds mourned the 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 Hakeem Said Ground where hundreds gathered to say prayers and pay their respect. She was laid to rest at Azimpura graveyard located in Shah Faisal Colony.
“My daughter is a martyr and martyrs don’t die,” Sheikh’s father Abdul Aziz said after the prayers.
Officials participating in 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,” Sindh 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.
Sindh Chief Minister Murad Shah, Sindh Governor Muhammad Zubair, Sindh Home Minister Sohail Anwar Siyal, Muttahida Qaumi Movement, Amin-ul-Haq, Pak Sarzameen Party chief Mustafa Kamal, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s (PTI) Halim Adil Sheikh and others attended her funeral prayers.
Heavy contingent law enforcement agencies including police and Rangers have deployed at the airport and also at University Road to avert any untoward incident. Police also cordon off entire University Road and Hakim Saeed Ground, where bomb disposal squad (BDS) experts have earlier conducted a sweep to ensure security for participants of the funeral.
Following the funeral, Pakistani 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.
Sabika had been in the US on a State Department-sponsored exchange programme but was due to return home in mere weeks ahead of Eidul Fitr.
Sabika was the eldest in three siblings and was selected along with other 74 Pakistani students who were chosen out of 6000 students. She had completed her secondary education from Karachi Secondary School and remained such a talented student as she never got a rank below 3rd.
Despite strained relations between Washington and Islamabad, the US has long been a favoured destination for Pakistani students studying abroad, with thousands enrolling in American schools every year.
Sheikh’s death came just three months after another school massacre in Parkland, Florida killed 17 people, sparking an unprecedented grassroots, student-led gun control movement.
The shooting in Santa Fe was the 22nd such incident at a US school this year, according to media reports, a disturbing statistic in a country where firearms are part of everyday life and there are more than 30,000 gun-related deaths annually.