IT was heart-rending to hear about yet another school shooting in USA that resulted in 10 deaths, including the death of 17-year old Sabika Sheikh from Karachi.

Sabika’s father has rightly said, this is an act of terrorism. I quote from an article in The Washington Post: “More people have been killed at schools this year than have been killed while serving in the military” (2018 has been deadlier for schoolchildren than service members, May 18). However, I fail to understand why the media purposely avoids calling the shooters as ‘terrorists’ or the incidents as ‘acts of terrorism’ — a term that is reserved only for incidents in which the shooter is discovered to be a Muslim, even if the cruelty level and number of casualties is the same. I also fail to understand why it isn’t considered possible that a shooter, who also happens to be a Muslim, could also be mentally ill – can only white non-Muslim shooters be depression patients?

It is time we did something to correct the distorted narratives and be more discerning.

Izz Ghanaa Ansari

Islamabad

Published in Dawn, May 22nd, 2018