Parents of Pakistani exchange student killed in Texas shooting sue suspect’s family

KARACHI: The parents of Sabika Sheikh, a Pakistani teenage exchange student who was killed in a mass shooting at Santa Fe High School in Texas earlier this year, have sued the shooter’s parents for failing to prevent him from accessing their firearms.

Sabika’s parents joined a lawsuit in which family members of some of the 10 people killed at the high school allege that the shooter’s parents negligently and irresponsibly stored their firearms, which the shooter ended up using in the shooting, according to a November 28 press release issued by Everytown for Gun Safety’s litigation team, which is representing her parents.

The suit also alleges that the shooter’s parents failed to respond to and address warning signs that their son posed a risk to others.

“No other parent should ever have to experience this unbearable grief,” said Sabika’s parents Abdul Aziz and Farah Naz. “Sabika’s picture is in front of our eyes every single moment, and her voice and laughter echo in our ears. For a mother and a father, this trauma and mourning stay until their last breath. We are grateful to everyone in the US and around the world who met us in person and reached us through emails, print, electronic and social media to express solidarity and empower us to endure this most profound tragedy.”

Seventeen-year-old Sabika was less than a month away from returning to her home in Karachi, Pakistan after spending a year as an exchange student with the US State Department-sponsored Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study Program. She was among 10 people gunned down on May 18, 2018 inside the school by the suspect.