The May 18, 2018 shooting at the Santa Fe High School Texas claimed the lives of 10 innocent people including 8 students and 2 teachers. A 17 year old Pakistani girl Sabika Sheikh, who was on foreign exchange programme in the United States, also lost her life to the act of a deranged individual that day.<\/p>\n
It was just a month before her scheduled return to home when Sabika Sheikh lost her life to the second deadliest school shooting in the country that year. The May 18 shooting was the 22nd high school shooting in the US in 2018.<\/p>\n
ALSO READ<\/p>\n
Documentary on KPK Bomb Disposal Squad is Up for an Emmy!<\/a><\/p>\n Shaheera Jalil Albasit , the 27 year old cousin of Sabika Sheikh, also accompanied her to the US on fulbright Scholarship program at the George Washington University. When Shaheera Jalil told her mother in April about Sabika\u2019s plan of returning to Pakistan, they both had no idea about how cruel fate can be.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember (in) April, I was telling my mother, \u2018Thank God she (Sabika) is about to be done.\u2019 This was something in the back of my head\u2026 It was surreal,\u201d she told Arab News.<\/p>\n Shaheera Jalil Albasit narrated the traumatizing event following the shooting to Arab News during a short telephonic interview. She had no idea about the school\u2019s identity until her mother told her that it was Sabika\u2019s school.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I came across the news of the shooting in Texas, I obviously had no idea that it was her school. My mother in Pakistan, who I was on the phone with, told me that it was (Sabika\u2019s) school. I immediately looked it up and it was right there: 10 people confirmed dead,\u201d She said.<\/p>\n Sabika Sheikh was staying with a Muslim family in Texas. The news of her cousin\u2019s death was confirmed by one of the members of the family \u2014who also happened to be a student at Santa Fe High School\u2014 she was staying with on his Facebook.<\/p>\n Following Sabika Sheikh funeral in Karachi, her cousin Shaheera Jalil Albasit returned to the US with the aim to improve the existing gun laws in America. Her journey of introducing a bill in the name of Sabika began with an in depth study of American gun laws, making phone-calls and attending hearings.<\/p>\n With a short period of time left in US, she began working with Kristina Woods who had also lost her sibling in the same shooting. After intense efforts the two got Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, who represents Texas in the US House of Representatives, on board.<\/p>\n A day before Shaheera Jalil was about to return home her struggle finally yielded a positive result as \u2018The Sabika Sheikh Firearm Licensing & Registration Act\u2019 was introduced in the US Congress. If the bill gets approval from the US Congress it will follow a complete procedure for licensing and registration of guns.<\/p>\n The reforms \u2018The Sabika Sheikh Firearm Licensing & Registration Act\u2019 introduced to the current gun laws include increasing the buying age for guns from 18 to 21, detailed psychological screening and create a public database. This will allow the local police to know about every single person who owns a gun.<\/p>\n This is indeed a huge achievement and the credit goes to Shaheera Jalil Albasit for spearheading the initiative. It is believed that this will prove to be a game changer in America\u2019s struggle against illegal firearms.<\/p>\n Via Arab News<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The May 18, 2018 shooting at the Santa Fe High School Texas claimed the lives of 10 innocent people including 8 students and 2 teachers. A 17 year old Pakistani girl Sabika Sheikh, who was on foreign exchange programme in the United States, also lost her life to the act of a deranged individual that day. It was just a […] More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":230974,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1298,2199,2368],"tags":[],"adace-sponsor":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-230957","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture","8":"category-featured","9":"category-hollywood"},"wps_subtitle":"A tragedy followed by calls for gun control reform.","img_urls":{"thumbnail":["https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/sabika-sheikh-in-texas-364x205.jpg",364,205,true],"medium":["https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/sabika-sheikh-in-texas-758x414.jpg",758,414,true],"full":["https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/sabika-sheikh-in-texas.jpg",916,500,false]},"author_name":"Arslan Khattak","categories_name":["Culture","Featured","Hollywood"],"title_text":"Sabika Sheikh Remembered As Historic Gun Control Law Gets Passed In USA","related_stories":"https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts?filter&per_page=4&categories=1298,2199,2368&exclude=230957","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230957"},{"taxonomy":"adace-sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/propakistani.pk\/lens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/adace-sponsor?post=230957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSabika’s Cousin Recounts Her Experience<\/h3>\n
Sabika Sheikh Stayed with a Muslim Family<\/h3>\n
A Revolutionary Law for Gun Control in USA<\/h3>\n