Victim of school shooting comes in a wheelchair

KARACHI:

In what could be termed as the first assault of its kind in Karachi, the owner and principal of The Nation Secondary School, 45-year-old Abdul Rasheed, was targeted on March 30, 2013, along with a class four student, 10-year-old Tahira Noor.

The day was supposed to be filled with merriment, love and gifts as around 400 children had come to receive their results after the annual exams, now haunts the memories of those who witnessed it, said Aftab Ahmed, a nephew of Rasheed, who now oversees the school’s affairs. There was a grenade and gun attack on the school located in Baldia Town’s predominantly Pakhtun neighbourhood of Rahmania Muhalla. Ahmed believed the target was Rasheed as he was the Awami National Party’s vice-president for the city’s West district.



“He [Rasheed] was present in the marquee set up in front of the school for the annual function when the assailants lobbed a grenade laced with ball bearings packed into a tennis ball,” recalled Ahmed. “The deafening explosion, followed by gunfire, made everyone run for cover but the attackers forced their way into the school and kept firing.” The principal died on the spot and Tahira, the daughter of the area’s prayer leader Maulana Noor Wahid, succumbed to her injuries two days later.

Meanwhile, Atiya Arshad, another class four student, was hit in the backbone and now struggles with lower-body paralysis. “Nothing can persuade her to stay home,” Ahmed pointed out. “Atiya is so passionate about school that she comes every day on a wheelchair.”

It is the passion and commitment of students that helped them keep the students enrolled. “More than half the students had left but, in less than a year, we managed to bring them back,” he said, proudly. “He [Rasheed] raised me to what I am today and it is the least I can do.”

Published in The Express Tribune, January 18^th, 2014.