A man has been arrested in Pakistan for shooting a TikTok star dead just hours after she posted a video of herself celebrating her 17th birthday, according to police.
Sana Yousaf, who turned 17 last week and had more than a million followers across her social media accounts, was killed at her home in the capital Islamabad on Monday evening.
The 22-year-old man arrested on suspicion of her murder had spent hours loitering outside her home in the lead up to her death, police said.
‘It was a case of repeated rejections. The boy was trying to reach out to her time and again,’ Islamabad police chief Syed Ali Nasir Rizvi said during a news conference.
‘It was a gruesome and cold-blooded murder,’ Rizvi added.
Yousaf had more than 800,000 followers on TikTok, a wildly popular platform in Pakistan, where she posted lip-sync videos, skincare tips, and promotional content for beauty products.
The last video posted on her account was hours before her murder, in which she was seen cutting a cake for her birthday.
The comments section of the video was flooded with tributes from fans and fellow TikTok creators, with many reading: ‘Rest in Peace’ and ‘Justice for Sana’.
The shooting took place just hours after Yousaf shared a joyful video of her cutting her 17th birthday cake
Sana turned 17 last week and had more than a million followers across her social media accounts
Influencer Waliya Najib wrote: ‘This doesn’t feel real. You were glowing, just being 17. I’m so sorry this world didn’t protect you. Rest in peace, sweetheart.’
UK-based content creator Kashaf Ali wrote: ‘This is so awful. A literal 17 year old with so much innocence, killed for what?’
Violence against women is pervasive in Pakistan according to the country’s Human Rights Commission, and cases of women being attacked after rejecting marriage proposals are not uncommon.
Earlier this year, a father who moved his family from the United States to Pakistan was arrested after shooting his daughter dead in an alleged ‘honour killing’ over her use of social media.
Anwar ul-Haq, believed to be a US citizen, was charged with murder after he admitted to shooting his 15-year-old daughter Hira dead.
Mr ul-Haq had reportedly forbidden his daughter from making TikTok videos which he deemed ‘inappropriate’, and decided to kill her when she continued to post.
Hira’s family ‘had an objection to her dressing, lifestyle and social gathering,’ according to police.
He said the father of the 15-year-old girl initially suggested that an unidentified gunman had killed his daughter, but after he was taken into custody for questioning he confessed to the crime.
Her social media was flooded with tributes from fans and fellow TikTok creators, with many reading: ‘Rest in Peace’ and ‘Justice for Sana’
In 2021, 27-year-old Noor Mukadam was beheaded by her Pakistani-American boyfriend, Zahir Jaffer, after she rejected his marriage proposal in a case that sparked widespread anger.
In 2016, Khadija Siddiqui survived being stabbed 23 times by a jilted ex-boyfriend.
Yousaf’s death comes after another TikTok beauty influencer was brutally murdered last month.
Valeria Marquez, a 23-year-old TikToker and aesthetician, was shot multiple times while broadcasting live from inside her beauty salon in western Mexico.
Her senseless killing was just another example of the violence against women epidemic which Mexico is grappling with.
The country has long been plagued by ‘machismo’ culture and violence against women, which can range from comments on the street to, in its most extreme form, acid attacks and brutal murders.
