23rd May, 2018
Thousands of people in the port city of Karachi on Wednesday attended the funeral of a Pakistani girl killed in Friday school shooting in Texas.
Sabika Sheikh, 17, was among the 10 killed at Santa Fe High School in Texas.
Sheikh was an exchange student with the Youth Exchange and Study (YES) programme funded by the U.S. State Department.
She was due to complete her academic year and return home in a few weeks.
Her last rites were shown live on television.
The governor and chief minister of Sindh province, the heads of political parties and members of the public attended the funeral which was held under tight security.
News website Dawn reported that her body arrived from the U.S. after a delay of some 19 hours due to bad weather at Karachi airport where airport security formed a guard of honor for the teenager.
Prime Minister Shahid Abbasi visited the girl’s home on Sunday to offer his condolences to her family.
“Extremism is not the problem of any single country or region, but the whole world is affected by it,” he said in a statement issued by his office.
The Santa Fe shooting took place three months after 17 people were killed and 17 others injured at a high school in Parkland, Florida.
Sabika’s father on Monday said he hopes his daughter’s death leads to gun reform in the U.S.
“Sabika’s case should become an example to change the gun laws,” Aziz Sheik told Reuters.
“I want this to become a base on which the people over there can stand and pass a law to deal with this. I’ll do whatever I can,” he said.