Sabika was my friend, says deceased’s mother

The mother of the Sabika Sheikh, a Pakistani teenage exchange student who was shot dead by a white gunman in the Santa Fe massacre Friday evening, remarked that her daughter was just like her friend.

"Sabika became my friend, she would tell me that many of the kids at her school were lonely," Farha Aziz Sheikh, the 'grief-stricken' mother, told CNN, which said she had agreed to speak 'on condition of not being photographed'.

"There had been a suicide earlier in the student community and that had really shaken Sabika, I didn't think that I would lose my child so far away ... I never thought."

Seventeen-year-old Sabika, who hailed from Karachi, was among the 10 people killed in the Santa Fe, Texas shooting. The gunman, Dimitrios Pagourtzis, 17, was arrested on murder charges and was being held on capital murder charges, meaning that he could face the death penalty.

Sabika was studying in the US, under the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) programme since August 21, 2017, and was due to return home next month.

On the other hand, her father shared that his daughter was an avid reader, adding that she enjoyed studying US history and that she wanted to become a diplomat to “make Pakistan proud."

The teenager’s bookshelf contained Roald Dahl stories and Khaled Hosseini's books. Moreover, her sister showed a piece of paper on which Sabika had written, “don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."

The bereaved family, who heard about the shooting at Santa Fe high school sometime after iftar on Friday, was unable to get through to her mobile phone or in touch with any of her colleagues.

At 11 PM Friday night, however, Aisha Farooqui, the consul-general in Houston, confirmed to the family that Sabika had died alongside nine others during the tragic school shooting.

Outpouring of condolences

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi along with other political leaders, including Governor Sindh Muhammad Zubair, Muttahida Qaumi Movement's Farooq Sattar, Jamaat-e-Islami’s Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman, visited the house of the deceased to condole her family.

“Sabika was an outstanding student. The entire nation is in mourning over Sabika’s death,” remarked the premier while speaking to the bereaved family members.

Terrorism and related activities are not the issue of one country but an international menace, he said, adding that it is important to probe the causes of terrorism and eliminate them.