Suspect killed influencer Sana Yousaf after multiple rejections, says police chief

Islamabad Inspector General Syed Ali Nasir Rizvi said on Tuesday that the 17-year-old TikTok star, Sana Yousaf, was shot dead by a man who had repeatedly contacted her online.

Sana, who turned 17 last week and had more than a million followers across her social media accounts, was killed at her home in Islamabad on Monday evening.

The police have arrested a 22-year-old on suspicion of her murder, who spent hours loitering outside her home.

"It was a case of repeated rejections. The boy was trying to reach out to her time and again," the Islamabad police chief 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.

"Rest in Peace" and "Justice for Sana", read some comments under the video.

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.

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.