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Six Pakistanis were pronounced dead by New Zealand’s authorities in yesterday’s terror attack on two mosques in the quiet New Zealand city of Christchurch, Foreign Office Spokesperson Dr Mohammad Faisal confirmed on Saturday.
In a post shared on Twitter, Dr Faisal said Sohail Shahid, Syed Jahandad Ali, Syed Areeb Ahmed, Mahboob Haroon, Naeem Rashid and his son, Talha Naeem, have been pronounced dead by the authorities,
He added that three others who are missing are still being identified.
Earlier on Saturday, the spokesperson had released a list of Pakistanis that were considered ‘missing’.
The list included:
- Zeeshan Raza
- Father of Zeeshan Raza
- Mother of Zeeshan Raza
- Haroon Mahmood, son of Shahid Mehmood
- Sohail Shahid, son of Muhammad Shabbir
- Syed Areeb Ahmed, son of Ayaz Ahmed
- Syed Jahanand Ali
- Talha Naeem
- Naeem Rashid
“Our Mission in New Zealand is trying to ascertain further details,” Dr Faisal had said.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Shah Mahmood Qureshi also spoke to the media about the terror attack on Saturday.
“We are waiting for identification of [missing] Pakistanis. Obviously I’m getting more worried with time as we have not been able to contact them [the missing Pakistanis] and I fear that they might be on the list of martyrs. But nothing has been communicated to us officially yet and to say anything before an official confirmation will be speculation,” he said while condemning the attack in strong words.
A 28-year-old Australian-born man has been charged with murder. He is set to appear at the Christchurch District Court early Saturday. Two other men remain in custody, although their link to the attack is unknown.
The Australian man, identified by international media as Brenton Tarrant, live-streamed footage of himself going room-to-room, victim to victim, shooting the wounded from close range as they struggled to crawl away. He also published a racist ‘manifesto’ on social media before the attack, featuring conspiracy theories about Europeans being “displaced” by immigrants and details of two years of preparation and radicalisation leading up to the shootings.
His two targets were the Masjid al Noor mosque, where 41 people died, and a second, smaller mosque in the suburb of Linwood, where seven more died. The remaining victim succumbed in hospital.
The survivors included 17 members of Bangladesh’s cricket team, whose game against New Zealand on Saturday has been cancelled, and a Palestinian man who fled for his life after seeing someone being shot in the head.
New Zealand police described the footage shot by the gunman as “extremely distressing” and warned web users that they could be liable for up to 10 years in jail for sharing such “objectionable content”.
In addition to the footage, a number of pictures were posted to a social media account showing a semi-automatic weapon covered in the names of historical figures, many of whom were involved in the killing of Muslims.
The attack has shocked New Zealanders, who are used to seeing around 50 murders a year in the entire country of 4.8 million and pride themselves on living in a secure and welcoming place.
Police, who initially imposed a city-wide lockdown, sent armed officers to a number of scenes and the threat level in the nation was raised from “low” to “high”.
In Auckland, 1,000 kilometres away, two unattended bags left near a railway station were detonated by military explosives experts.
Police also attended a property in Dunedin which they believe is linked to the attack and evacuated nearby residents. The southeastern city was named in the suspect’s manifesto as the original target for his attack.
Police warned Muslims all over the country not to visit mosques “anywhere in New Zealand” in the wake of the Christchurch attacks.
Christchurch city council offered a helpline for parents looking for kids attending a mass climate change rally near the shooting.