Pretending to be a policeman, TikToker lands in trouble

The Peshawar police Sunday apprehended a TikToker for pretending to be a police officer by donning a police uniform in a video stunt in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's capital.

According to Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Warsak, the suspect "Roohullah", used to pretend as a policeman and upload videos in police uniform on the popular video-sharing platform TikTok.

Police said the suspect, in police custody, has expressed regret for his actions and pledged to refrain from making such videos in the future.

The suspect has also sent a message to other TikTokers not to make and upload videos in police uniform.

Police have registered a case against the suspect after recovering a police uniform and a mobile phone from his possession.

TikTokers — or people using the platform — in Pakistan have uploaded videos that landed them into controversies and this wasn’t the first time that a person has been nabbed for pretending to be a law enforcer on the video-sharing platform.

TikTok continued to top the charts with the most number of downloads in 2022 in Pakistan, outperforming Meta-owned Facebook, WhatsApp, and Messenger by a big margin.

With 39 million downloads in the previous year, TikTok maintained its supremacy over Facebook, which lagged behind by more than 7 million while Snapchat ranked third on the list with nearly 30 million downloads showing a growth of 51.26% compared to 2021.