LONDON, July 21: One of the people killed in the London bombings was an Afghan who tried to make a new life in Britain after his parents were killed by the Taliban movement in Afghanistan, a newspaper reported Thursday. Ateeque Sharifi, 24, who died when a suicide bomber blew up a subway train near King’s Cross station, was the last of the 56 victims to be formally identified, the Independent newspaper reported.
Three years ago he fled Kabul to London, where he learned English and became a model student. In his spare time, he worked in a pizza takeaway, sending most of his wages home to his younger sister in Afghanistan, the newspaper said.
Thalia Marriott, the principal at West Thames College which he had attended since September 2002, said the college’s staff and 7,000 students were deeply shocked and saddened by his death.
“The deep irony of this tragic event is that Ateeque had left Afghanistan to seek safety in the UK, only to find his fate at the hands of extremists here,” Marriott was quoted as saying.
She described him as a “truly inspirational and popular student” who was “destined for a bright future.”
During a visit to London, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan paid tribute to Sharifi by placing flowers among the hundreds of personal tributes piling up in the garden square outside King’s Cross station. —AFP
