’We feel ashamed’: Pakistani relatives of California shooter

KAROR LAL ESAN, Pakistan — Estranged relatives of a Pakistani woman involved in a mass shooting in California spoke on Sunday of their shame at her crimes, as former classmates and teachers painted a picture of a quiet, religiously conservative student. Tashfeen Malik, 29, and her husband Syed Farook, 28, gunned down 14 people at a social services centre in San Bernardino, an act praised by Daesh who hailed the couple as “soldiers” of its self-proclaimed caliphate. According to her uncle Malik Ahmed Ali Aulakh, who is a former provincial minister, Tashfeen was born in the village of Karor Lal Esan in the central province of Punjab. “We are ashamed and shocked about this act done by our niece — why did she do something so gruesome? We can’t believe it,” he said. Malik Omar Ali Aulakh, another of her uncles, added: “We have not kept in touch with Gulzar’s family and he avoided contacting us.” A Pakistani intelligence agent said on they had conducted a search on Saturday of a second family home in the region’s main city of Multan, around 200 km northwest of their ancestral village, but found nothing of interest. An AFP reporter at the scene on Sunday afternoon saw a woman wearing a black burqa and green sweater leaving the pink-and-white two-story house located in a middle-class neighborhood with a bearded man, both carrying luggage. “This woman was part of Gulzar Ahmed Malik’s family and the man with her was her maternal uncle. They were living in this house and now they have gone somewhere. I don’t know where have they gone,” said Zulfiqar, a resident of the area. The southern region of Punjab from which Tashfeen hailed has long been associated with Sufism, a mystical form of Islam whose adherents worship with song and dance, attend shrines and devote themselves to historic saints — practices viewed as heretical by more orthodox Muslims. Indeed, according to Mohammad Jamil, a neighbor of Tashfeen’s father, one of Tashfeen’s uncles himself was a Sufi devotional singer. “We don’t want Muslims to do such things. Such people should be punished, must be punished,” said Jamil of Tashfeen, adding: “She has dishonored Pakistan.” Pakistan’s government on Sunday issued a statement condemning the attack, even as its interior minister said Islamabad could not be held responsible. “We have contacted the US government and assured them we will provide them whatever legal assistance possible, if asked,” Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said in Islamabad. But, he added: “A country or a national or a religion cannot be held responsible for a crime committed by an individual and I appreciate a wise approach adopted by the US administration on the issue.” — AFP