Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has announced that his government will posthumously award a Pakistani victim of the Christchurch mosque attacks who apparently tried to tackle the gunman before being shot dead. Fifty people were killed in the attacks in New Zealand.
“We stand ready to extend all our support to the families of Pakistani victims of the terrorist attack in Christchurch,” Khan tweeted on Sunday. “Pakistan is proud of Mian Naeem Rashid who was martyred trying to tackle the white supremacist terrorist and his courage will be recognised with a national award.”
Pakistan has several bravery awards for civilians but Khan did not mention which one will be given to Rashid, who also lost his 22-year old son in the attacks in New Zealand. Monday is a day of national mourning in the country and all flags will fly at half mast.
Khan’s statement came even as the Pakistani foreign office confirmed that nine of its citizens were killed in the mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch on Friday, AFP reported.
Khan said the Christchurch attacks “reaffirm what we have always maintained – that terrorism does not have a religion”, The Washington Post reported. “I blame these increasing attacks on the Islamophobia post-9/11, where Islam and 1.3 billion Muslims have collectively been blamed for any act of terror by a Muslim,” he added.
A video of the massacre shows a man approaching the gunman while others flee and he is soon shot dead. Though it is believed to be Rashid, his face is blurred in the video clip and he has not been formally identified yet. Rashid has become a national hero in Pakistan, The Washington Post reported.
“My brother was a brave man who died to save others,” Rashid’s brother Khurshid Alam told the newspaper in a telephone interview on Sunday from his home in Abbottabad. “His death showed how he cared for humanity.”
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