Texas School Shooting: Amritsar Students Mourn Victims of Uvalde Attack

Students at an Amritsar school hold a candlelit vigil for the victims of the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. 

(Photo Courtesy: Facebook/Sandeep Sareen)

Students at the Sareen School in Amritsar, India, conducted a candlelit vigil for victims of a mass shooting at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Reuters reported on Wednesday, 25 May.

A video uploaded by Reuters shows a candlelight vigil that was held in solidarity with the families of 19 children and two teachers who were killed by an 18-year-old gunman at the school in Uvalde, a town 100 miles from San Antonio, Texas.

Sandeep Sareen, the school principal, described the tragedy as a "heart-wrenching incident" that should never take place in a "place of study."

"Children go to school to study. Those third and fourth-graders who were the loved daughters and sons of parents who are devastated by the loss, is tragic."

Sandeep Sareen, Principal of Sareen School, New Tehsilpura Amritsar

The children at the school stood with signs saying "Tribute" and candles, chanting prayers in Sanskrit.

The Uvalde Shooting

In one of the deadliest grade school shootings in a decade, an 18-year-old gunman killed at least 19 students and two adults in an elementary school in Texas on Tuesday, 24 May.

You can read a profile of the shooter here. For an explainer on why guns laws of the US are hard to do away with, click here.

"As a nation, we have to ask, when in God's name are we going to stand up to gun lobbying? When in God's name will we do what we all know in our gut that needs to be done?" US President Joe Biden asked during his speech in the aftermath of the shooting.

This case of gun violence at a school comes on the heels of a grocery store shooting that took place on 14 May when 10 elderly African American members of the community in Buffalo, New York, were killed in what is now described as a "racist attack".

Just earlier this month, a group of churchgoers at a Taiwanese church in Southern California were attacked by a gunman during a lunch banquet. Five churchgoers of Asian origin were shot out of which one was killed in this shooting that took place on 15 May.

(With inputs from Reuters.)