Article content continued

“She told us that she was going to get married in two months, and after that she will leave for America.” Chaudhry said by phone from the southern port city of Karachi, where she is based.

Malik promised to complete her studies by mail correspondence, but that never happened, Chaudhry said.

“I have talked to her teachers, her classmates, and everybody says she was a hardworking, friendly, helpful and obedient student,” Chaudhry said, adding that “no one ever noticed any signs of radicalization.”

One of the teachers at the seminary, Aalia Qamar, said Malik attended classes regularly, and introduced three or four of her friends to the school. She asked many questions in class about religion and at times debated religious matters with teachers and classmates.

On Monday, Pakistani police barred local and international media from entering the pharmacy department of the university where Malik studied. Police inspector Muhammad Ali said the reporters did not have valid documents to work in the city.

The university administration deployed extra private security guards outside the facility and after an argument with some reporters, university security officials called in the police. The police escorted two journalists off the campus.

Pakistani authorities have also been looking into Malik’s time in Multan. Police and intelligence agents have searched the house where she lived on two occasions since Friday. Shabana Saif, a counterterrorism official, said intelligence agents seized documents, family photo albums and a laptop belonging to Malik’s sister, Shahida, who was studying engineering at a Pakistani college. It is not clear whether the house, which has been sealed, was owned by Tashfeen or her father.

Malik and her American-born husband Syed Farook were killed in a shootout with police hours after they opened fire with assault rifles on a gathering of Farook’s colleagues last Wednesday in San Bernardino, California, killing 14 people.

The FBI said Friday that it is investigating the shooting as an act of terrorism. If the massacre was inspired by Islamic extremism, it would be the deadliest such attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.

Shahzad reported from Islamabad.