Pakistani expats in Saudi Arabia in shock after school killings

The barbaric attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar has numbed the entire Eastern Province cutting across all national, regional, social and religious barriers.

“It is a shame on humanity,” said Fayez Al-Mazroui, a school teacher and a journalist.

The moment TV channels broke the news of the killings in the morning, the area around the International Pakistani School in Al-Khobar was a picture of utter chaos, anger and pain.

People were seen crying and cursing the terrorists who committed such a ghastly act. Many of the shops pulled down the shutters.

Several international schools held condolence meetings. At International Indian School a condolence meeting was held with a two minute silence for the victims. School principal Dr. Mohammed Shafie and chairman Abdullah Manjeri deplored the killings.

Mohammed Ashraf, a senior business executives and a Pakistani national, said: “We have been shamed by such a barbaric act and hope the government will take all appropriate action to ensure that such an act is not repeated elsewhere and the culprits are punished.”

Syed Abdullah Rizvi, an Indian national and marketing manager in a national company, said the act defied the very basic teachings of Islam and all human values.

“The entire world should join hands to fight these fanatics and ensure that our children are safe in their schools,” he said.

Shafiq Ahmad, a computer engineer working in Techno Valley in Dhahran and who hails from Pakistani city of Karachi, condemned the killings, saying that until now the places of worships and market places were not safe but now even our schools and colleges are unsafe.

This story was originally posted on the Saudi Gazette on Dec. 17, 2014.