Women quietly went upstairs to offer their condolences to her mother and younger sisters, while her father – who looked visibly dazed – was surrounded by mourning friends on the ground floor.
He hugged back whoever wanted to hug him and listened quietly to whatever anyone had to say to him, though he did not speak much.
“Abdul Aziz Sheikh is still in shock. Daughters are the favourite of the fathers,” said Abdul Salam Sheikh, the paternal uncle of 17-year-old Sabika Sheikh. “He didn’t sleep a wink throughout the night since he got the terrible news. And now he has become very quiet. What do you expect from a father who has just lost the firstborn?”
Sabika was one of the 10 people – eight students and two teachers – who were killed when student Dimitrios Pagourtzis went on a shooting rampage at Santa Fe High School in Texas on Friday morning.
She was the only Muslim among the slain.
Sabika was studying in Texas under the Youth Exchange and Study (YES) programme, a US State Department-funded initiative providing scholarships to Pakistani students to attend high school in the US for a full academic year.
Visiting students live with host families in the city they are placed in, and are immersed in scholastic and cultural programmes throughout the 10 to 11 months that they are there.
They are youth ambassadors bridging people and cultures.
“Sabika was staying with a Muslim-American family in Texas. They were first to hear about the shooting, and knowing that she was in school at the time, they rushed there immediately,” said Sabika’s maternal uncle, identified only as Colonel Haider. “Her father, too, after hearing about it tried calling her on her phone from here.”
“But there was no answer. Her death was finally confirmed to us by the YES programme co-ordinator a few hours later,” he said.
“The family she was staying with had come to love her like a daughter in this short span of time, and were already dreading her leaving them soon as the YES programme was concluding … she was due to return to Pakistan on June 9,” Haider added.
“And here we were looking forward to seeing her back with us this Eid,” he said.
Sabika was the eldest among four siblings: she had two sisters and a brother.
Even though she was still a teenager, her uncle said, he was often amazed at how mature she was.
“She often spoke about issues such as women’s rights and women empowerment. She would speak to her cousins and friends about these things, too, trying to open up their minds to issues and good causes,” he said.
“She would say herself that she was not interested in studying medicine or engineering. She wanted to fight for people’s rights. We were sure she would grow up to be a social activist,” Haider said. “Who knew she had such a short life.”
“Everyone has their own way of dealing with tragedy. Right now everyone here is in shock. Her mother is still in the denial, still praying to God that there has been some kind of a mix-up and that Sabika is fine,” he added. “But slowly we will come out of the shock as the pain we have to live with now takes over.”
Haider added: “Sabika was born on the 4th of Ramadan and she was taken from us on Friday, the 2nd of this holy month.”
Sabika’s father then spoke a bit about his daughter, saying that he did not remember a single year when she did not bagged a position at her school throughout her time in school.
“My daughter was a brilliant student. She was doing her O-Levels at Karachi Public School in PECHS, when she was selected for the foreign exchange programme. We were all so proud of her then. We are proud of her even today,” he said.
PECHS stands for the Pakistan Employees Co-operative Housing Society.
The family said that the government is making arrangements to have Sabika’s remains brought back home.
Pakistan’s ambassador to the US Aziz Chaudhry has asked the Pakistan counsel general in Houston to keep the family, as well as the relevant authorities in Houston, updated with a view to ensure timely completion of all formalities for bringing back the deceased.
Meanwhile, AFP reported that hundreds of people are expected to attend Sabika’s funeral in Texas.
The ceremony is to take place at an Islamic centre in the Texas town of Stafford, not far from Santa Fe High School, where the shooting took place, the Islamic Society of Greater Houston said in a statement.
The Islamic Society, in its statement, called the shooting “an act of terror” and said such events “remind us as to what world we live in, where sanctity of life is not valued”.
It said it had offered to help with the funeral and the transportation of Sabika’s remains back to Pakistan.
Some 60,000 people in Houston, 35 miles (55km) from Santa Fe, are of Pakistani descent.
Meanwhile, Foreign Office spokesman Dr Mohammad Faisal said Sabika’s death is heartbreaking.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated in a statement that was sent to the family: “I send my deepest condolences to the family and friends of Sabika Sheikh.”
He noted that she was in the US under YES programme, helping to build ties between the two countries.
“Sabika’s death and that of the other victims is heartbreaking and will be mourned deeply both here in the US and Pakistan,” said Pompeo.
