A society in moral freefall
EDITORIAL: Another day in Pakistan: another young woman silenced by the brutal hands of male violence. The tragedy that befell 17-year-old TikTok star Sana Yousaf in Islamabad on June 2 is a harrowing reminder of how women's lives remain expendable in a society that refuses to confront its deep-rooted misogyny or dismantle the structures that allow such violence to thrive. According to details provided by Islamabad police, a 22-year-old man from Faisalabad, Umar Hayat, was arrested within hours of the murder coming to light through the help of CCTV footage from the vicinity of the victim's home and geo-fencing technology that helped trace his location. The Islamabad police chief tied the killing to the suspect persistently attempting to befriend Yousaf over several months, advances she repeatedly rejected.
The alleged culprit's violent reaction to rejection exposes a warped mindset: one that fails to grasp the concepts of consent and female agency, and views women's autonomy as an affront. It reflects a society where too many men are raised to see dominance as their birthright and 'no' as a challenge to be crushed. This begs the question: how many more lives must be lost before Pakistani society finally breaks this cycle of entitlement that turns male fragility into female fatalities?
As reprehensible as Yousaf's murder was, its aftermath revealed an even deeper societal sickness. Social media became a cesspool of victim-blaming, with young men justifying, and even celebrating the killing, twisting the victim's social media presence into some perverse justification for her violent end. It was a grotesque display of how violence against women has been normalised, where any female defying patriarchal boundaries is seen as 'asking for it'. That such depraved rhetoric flows so freely exposes how profoundly broken our moral compass is, with yet another generation of boys being radicalised into viewing women's lives as disposable.
While the police did well to apprehend the alleged culprit in quick time, this moment demands more than just efficient policing. It requires the authorities to apply the country's cybercrime statutes — which they were so eager to foist upon the public — against their most legitimate targets: the digital lynch mobs treating a 17-year-old child's murder as cause for celebration. If cybercrime regulations can be deployed so fervently to silence political dissent, surely they can be used to prosecute those cheering and inciting violence against women. The fact is that true societal change — the dismantling of toxic patriarchal norms — will take years of education and awareness. But we cannot wait for that distant evolution while women's lives hang in the balance. The law must act now to punish not just physical violence, but also the online hate that fuels it. Let these tools, so often misused, finally serve what their true purpose should have always been, i.e., protecting the vulnerable.
Recent days have revealed a damning portrait of our decay: child marriage bans spark protests, while dead women are posthumously tried for their own murders. Real change will require a dual reckoning — swift justice for both perpetrators of violence against women and their online enablers, along with an educational overhaul to reshape how young boys perceive women's autonomy so that this rot is rooted out before it takes hold in another generation. The alternative is tacitly endorsing the next murder of a girl who simply tried living on her own terms.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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Express Tribune
19 hours ago
- Express Tribune
Ayeza Khan under fire for 'insensitive' statement
Following the murder of 17-year-old influencer Sana Yousaf, Ayeza Khan joined her fellow celebrities and the internet in speaking out about the issue. However, her priorities didn't quite align with what netizens were expecting from her. Instead of condemning the murder or the perpetrator, Ayeza chose to discuss the repercussions of sharing one's personal life on social media. "Let's all understand the pros and cons of social media, especially when it comes to our security. Keep your addresses, car numbers, regular spots, and children's details private," she wrote. "It's not safe. It's just not safe. Share less. Times have changed," she emphasised. "Recognise that the audience you have today isn't the one you personally chose. It's from all over the world." The Meray Paas Tum Ho actor believes that it is one's own responsibility to guard what they put out in the digital world. "Let's take responsibility for what we share," she said. Adding a prayer, she concluded, "May Allah protect us all and keep us in good company. Ameen." 'Tone deaf much?' Although Ayeza's sentiments stemmed from a place of concern for the detrimental impact of social media on one's life, netizens called out her statement for lacking sensitivity and veering towards victim blaming. "Someone lost their life because some man had a similar toxic ideology as the roles your husband plays in every single drama he stars in, and your main takeaway is 'let's protect ourselves'? Tone deaf much?" an Instagram user questioned. The user didn't mince their words, urging Ayeza to tell her actor-husband Danish Taimoor to stop romanticising toxic masculinity in his drama serials and have empathy for the family who lost their young girl. "You should at least have some form of the humanity that you were preaching a few weeks ago, telling others to not victim blame," the user continued. "You seriously need to check yourself first and then hire a decent PR team because every statement you make is the most ridiculous, tone-deaf, and insensitive thing ever." A different netizen suggested that the Humraaz actor is hypocritical for having an active Instagram account and still putting out such statements. "While your whole life is on your social media account, you still have the guts to shape cold-blooded murder into a lack of self-protection. Please come out of the fancy clothes and glamorous shoots. The victim was not at fault at all. Maybe tell your dear husband to not choose scripts like he does all the time and stop normalising abuse on screens." Other criticism ranged from speaking out against male privilege to hoping to de-platform celebrities who perpetuate harmful ideas that influence the wrong minds. Many argued that the problem is not social media but the entitlement that criminals have to commit such heinous crimes without the fear of being watched or punished. As per the BBC, a 22-year-old man confessed to murdering Sana after being arrested. Authorities believe that Umar Hayat murdered the influencer at her home in Islamabad after she rejected his "offers of friendship". They informed the BBC that he broke into her house, fired two shots, and fled with her phone. Sana's family gathered in Chitral for her burial. Her father, Syed Yousaf Hassan, shared that she was his only daughter a "very brave" one at that. He added that she had never mentioned Umar or reported any threatening behaviour before her life was taken on Monday.
Express Tribune
a day ago
- Express Tribune
The rot that killed Sana Yousaf was never hiding
They say history is a great teacher. Unless, of course, we are talking about the treatment of women in Pakistan. In that case, the lessons rarely seem to stick. It is not that we forget what happened. In fact, on May 20 when the Supreme Court upheld Zahir Jaffer's death sentence, we proudly reposted '#JusticeForNoor'. We like the same photo of Zainab Ansari that makes the rounds on social media on her death anniversary, as many still comment that her killer should have been publicly hanged. We even speak of Qandeel Baloch's name with bated breath, recounting how unfortunate it was every time we see her picture make it back to our timeline. And now, we chant for 17-year-old Sana Yousaf. We demand the harshest punishment for her killer, calling for his swift execution, insisting that he be made an example of. We post her pictures with teary captions, share videos of her smiling, and ask: how a girl so young could be taken so violently. Outrage, by now, is a choreography we have learned by heart. And we really do mean it. And still, there is always another girl. And then another. And then another. And make no mistake, there always will be. Because ours is not a history of lessons learned - it is rot that keeps returning, like a cancer that festers in any corner it can find. 'Jaisi karni, waisi bharni' Allow us to demonstrate. On June 3, just hours after it was confirmed that Sana's murder was an act of hatred by Umar Hayat for rejecting his 'friendship' proposal, social media was flooded with supportive comments. However, as the story goes, the sceptics eventually began to creep. One comment appeared. Then another. Then a third. But why was she on TikTok to begin with? Where are her parents? She must have had some involvement in this. So, what started as a clear case of rage on femicide by any definition of the word, swiftly flattened into a PR-friendly lecture on how girls should behave. Inevitably, rolling the red carpet for everyone's favorite pseudo-moralists, who, true to form, reach for their most iron-clad, tight-fisted defence: the Islam card. This ranged from throwaway one-liners about the necessity of modesty, casually dropped into comment sections, to full-blown fanatics spewing the most vile vitriol, calling for the swift 'erasure' (being generous here) of all such women, because they are the ones spreading 'fahaashi', leading society astray and betraying the word of God. Ironically, they consistently fail to acknowledge what Islam actually teaches: that there is no compulsion in religion, that justice is sacred, and that the burden of wrongdoing lies not on the victim, but the oppressor. But nuance, of course, rarely trends. Neither does picking a side, because celebrities with mammothian platforms, sweeped in at just the right time to provide half-baked statements of condemnation while simultaneously preaching the dangers of social media, the importance of privacy, and how young girls should be careful. Only a few and far between had the courage to call a spade a spade: a man felt entitled to a girl's life and he took it. It is not just the social media echo chamber that is pushing this narrative, too. Just last week, Justice Ali Baqir Najafi stood in the Supreme Court, following Jaffer's sentencing and described Noor's case as a warning against live-in relationships. Unfortunate and disgusting sure, but a cautionary tale, nevertheless. And so, the case of a woman who was tortured, killed, and beheaded became, somehow, a parable about lifestyle choices inviting danger. And the cancer does not stop at the courtroom. We saw this unfold in real time with the Dua Zehra case, where large media outlets and mainstream journalists after expressing their concerns, speculated on her character, questioned her sanity, painted her as rebellious, and amplified every salacious detail they could find. Our silent complicity Perhaps the most devastating betrayal comes when these words are repeated by our own. At the dinner table, the cancer lives in our mothers, who mourn the news as it plays on the television and then reinforce this is why girls should stay home. It grows in our grandmothers, who agree with them, sighing 'in my day girls stayed quiet.' It breathes in our cousin commenting, 'this happens when girls don't stay within their limits'. It thrives in phrases like, 'apni izzat apne haath' (you are the guardian of your own honour). Undeniably, while there is some truth to the notion that we have a degree of control over the respect we receive from those around us, more often than not, this phrase is used in a deceptive way to teach young girls something far more insidious. It becomes a subtle, almost palatable way of implying: 'What happened to you is sad but if you hadn't done this or that, you wouldn't have invited this trouble; maybe you could have saved yourself.' So the point we arrive at is this: despite what we like to tell ourselves, these are not bad apples, or an 'uneducated' few. This is the symptom of a society suspended in a coma, where shock is expected, but action is absent. Each time a woman's name becomes a headline, we jolt awake, shaken by our anger; we post tributes, we write captions, until slowly slipping back into a familiar sleep. The truth is, we live in a state of denial, of the unique willful kind, where we have learned to perform our grief. Public mourning has become our substitute for justice and expressions of solidarity have become our excuse to avoid confronting the systems and this has allowed this violence to happen again and again. Perhaps, at this point, this has paralysingly become our only choice. But at the very least, let us not pretend to be surprised. Let us not mourn Sana as if her death was unprecedented or unthinkable. The cancer that led us here is not new and it is not hiding. It has baked into our institutions, families, conversations and media. And it is now convincing us that our grief is enough. Which, for the record, it never was, and it never will be. Have something to add to the story? Share it in the comments below.
Business Recorder
2 days ago
- Business Recorder
A society in moral freefall
EDITORIAL: Another day in Pakistan: another young woman silenced by the brutal hands of male violence. The tragedy that befell 17-year-old TikTok star Sana Yousaf in Islamabad on June 2 is a harrowing reminder of how women's lives remain expendable in a society that refuses to confront its deep-rooted misogyny or dismantle the structures that allow such violence to thrive. According to details provided by Islamabad police, a 22-year-old man from Faisalabad, Umar Hayat, was arrested within hours of the murder coming to light through the help of CCTV footage from the vicinity of the victim's home and geo-fencing technology that helped trace his location. The Islamabad police chief tied the killing to the suspect persistently attempting to befriend Yousaf over several months, advances she repeatedly rejected. The alleged culprit's violent reaction to rejection exposes a warped mindset: one that fails to grasp the concepts of consent and female agency, and views women's autonomy as an affront. It reflects a society where too many men are raised to see dominance as their birthright and 'no' as a challenge to be crushed. This begs the question: how many more lives must be lost before Pakistani society finally breaks this cycle of entitlement that turns male fragility into female fatalities? As reprehensible as Yousaf's murder was, its aftermath revealed an even deeper societal sickness. Social media became a cesspool of victim-blaming, with young men justifying, and even celebrating the killing, twisting the victim's social media presence into some perverse justification for her violent end. It was a grotesque display of how violence against women has been normalised, where any female defying patriarchal boundaries is seen as 'asking for it'. That such depraved rhetoric flows so freely exposes how profoundly broken our moral compass is, with yet another generation of boys being radicalised into viewing women's lives as disposable. While the police did well to apprehend the alleged culprit in quick time, this moment demands more than just efficient policing. It requires the authorities to apply the country's cybercrime statutes — which they were so eager to foist upon the public — against their most legitimate targets: the digital lynch mobs treating a 17-year-old child's murder as cause for celebration. If cybercrime regulations can be deployed so fervently to silence political dissent, surely they can be used to prosecute those cheering and inciting violence against women. The fact is that true societal change — the dismantling of toxic patriarchal norms — will take years of education and awareness. But we cannot wait for that distant evolution while women's lives hang in the balance. The law must act now to punish not just physical violence, but also the online hate that fuels it. Let these tools, so often misused, finally serve what their true purpose should have always been, i.e., protecting the vulnerable. Recent days have revealed a damning portrait of our decay: child marriage bans spark protests, while dead women are posthumously tried for their own murders. Real change will require a dual reckoning — swift justice for both perpetrators of violence against women and their online enablers, along with an educational overhaul to reshape how young boys perceive women's autonomy so that this rot is rooted out before it takes hold in another generation. The alternative is tacitly endorsing the next murder of a girl who simply tried living on her own terms. Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
