NEW YORK, April 6: Ms Parveen Ali, a 26-year-old woman of Pakistani origin, was one of the 13 victims of the disgruntled Vietnamese national who killed himself last Friday in Binghamton (New York). Ms Ali's brother Nader told reporters on Sunday that she was "the base of our family" and a "martyr".
"There's nothing we can do," he said. "She was an innocent person who got killed for no reason." Nader Ali said he, his mother, his sister and a brother had come to the United States in 2001. His sister became a US citizen and a teacher, so she continued to go to the civic association to improve her language skills.
"She was like a parent. She was like a friend. She was a teacher. She was a facilitator who always pushed me to go through school, to go through college," he said.
Funeral for Ms Parveen Ali was held on Sunday afternoon at a local mosque. An interfaith memorial service for all the victims was held late in the evening, and hundreds of people took part in a candlelight vigil afterward.
Police said they believed Jiverly Wong, the 41-year-old Vietnamese immigrant from an ethnic Chinese family, shot 17 people at the centre and then killed himself.
Four people were in serious condition in local hospitals but were expected to survive, police said.
Wong had been taking English classes at the association and was upset about recently losing a job, but officials said no clear motive for the killings was immediately evident.
