INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
the US school shooting in which his 17-year-old daughter was killed on CNN, with the story airing live as he broke his Ramadan fast
She did not answer."I kept calling her and sent her messages on WhatsApp
Never before had my daughter failed to reply," Aziz told AFP, fighting back tears at his home in the southern port city Karachi Saturday,
just hours after he and his wife had their worst fears confirmed."We are still in a state of denial
It is like a nightmare," said Aziz
His wife sat nearby, visibly still shocked and seemingly unable to speak as friends and relatives tried to comfort her.Sheikh, an exchange
student at the Santa Fe High School in Texas, was killed along with nine others after a heavily armed student opened fire on his classmates
Friday.It was the latest school shooting to rock the US, and came just three months after the massacre in Parkland, Florida in which 17
people were killed, sparking an unprecedented grassroots, student-led gun control movement.In Pakistan, the Santa Fe shooting has unleashed
an outpouring of sympathy and horror over the tragic murder of Sheikh, who had been in the US for 10 months and was just weeks away from
Ramadan, in which families come together and celebrate with days of feasting."She was coming back soon," her father said."There is a general
impression that the life is safe and secure in America
as Sheikh -- was later apprehended by police and is being held on capital murder charges, meaning he could face the death penalty.Police
have yet to release details about a possible motive.It was the 22nd school shooting this year, according to US 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.The news that a
Pakistani exchange student was among the dead appeared to break through the now-routine outpouring of grief on social media after such
We must do more than just console the parents of these murdered kids," said American actress Mindy Kaling on Twitter, along with a picture
of Sheikh in a post online.Some Pakistanis, for whom militant violence is all too familiar, branded the killing "terrorism"."My heart is
crying for #SabikaSheikh we have lost our brightest asset because of terrorism," tweeted Malik Rohaina, from the southern Pakistani city of
Hyderabad.Despite perennially rocky 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.Even as he mourned the loss of his daughter, Aziz said he
hoped the tragedy would not frighten fellow Pakistanis from following her lead."Such incidents should not make people lose heart and one
should not stop going to the US or UK or China or anywhere," said Aziz
"One must go for education undeterred."
