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Pakistani Teenager Killed In Texas School Shooting Buried In Karachi


The coffin of Santa Fe High School shooting victim Sabika Sheikh, 17, is carried during a memorial service in Stafford, Texas. Her remains were later transferred for burial in Pakistan.
The coffin of Santa Fe High School shooting victim Sabika Sheikh, 17, is carried during a memorial service in Stafford, Texas. Her remains were later transferred for burial in Pakistan.

KARACHI, Pakistan -- Hundreds of people have attended the funeral in Karachi of a Pakistani exchange student killed in last week's school shooting in Texas.

Sabika Sheikh, 17, was among eight students and two teachers gunned down at a high school in Santa Fe on May 18 when a student opened fire on classmates.

Her body was flown back to Pakistan on May 23 and taken to a public meeting ground where the mourners gathered to pay their respects before the burial at a nearby cemetery.

"My daughter is a martyr and martyrs don't die," Sheikh's father, Abdul Aziz, said after the prayers.

Provincial Governor Mohammad Zubair, who also attended the funeral, told reporters, "The whole nation stands by the Pakistani girl who was martyred in a terrorist attack in the U.S.”

The gunman, identified as 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis, is being held on murder charges and could face the death penalty.

Sabika Sheikh had been due to return to Pakistan in just a few weeks' time, ahead of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr.

She had been studying in Texas for the last year as part of a U.S. government program.

With reporting by AFP and the BBC

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