6 days ago
- General
- The Herald Scotland
TikToker Sana Yousuf shot dead, man she rejected arrested
A day after the incident sent shockwaves across the country, Islamabad Police arrested the main suspect, Umar Hayat, a 22-year-old man from Faisalabad, a city about 200 miles from the capital of Islamabad. Police said the suspect had only done his matriculation, equivalent to high school in the U.S., and belonged to a lower-middle-income family, with "no source of income."
Pakistan's Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, in a post on X, said the accused has confessed to the murder and that the weapon had been recovered.
Sana Yousuf's murder a case of 'repeated rejections'
Islamabad Inspector General (IG) Syed Ali Nasir Rizvi, in a press conference on May 3, said the incident was a case of "repeated rejections."
"A monster, cold-blooded murderer is now in the law's grip," IG Rizvi said during the press conference, noting the suspect had tried to contact Sana repeatedly and was being "rejected by her again and again."
The police chief said the culprit wanted to "become friends" with the social media influencer and had made repeated attempts to make connections with her. He even reached her home on her birthday on May 29 and "tried to meet her for seven to eight hours but failed."
"First, it was a cellular rejection. Now, it was a physical mode of rejection," Rizvi said.
On the day of the murder, the suspect made a similar attempt for the same amount of time to meet Sana but was unsuccessful, according to Rizvi.
After receiving multiple rejections and no response from Sana, the suspect then forcefully entered her home and shot her. Police said the suspect had planned the murder, and Samaa News reported he parked his motorcycle near Sana's house and fled the scene on it after committing the crime. CCTV footage shows what appears to be the suspect running away from the location on foot.
According to a First Information Report lodged by the victim's mother, Farzana Yousuf, the suspect entered their home suddenly with a pistol around 5 p.m. on June 2 and fired point blank at Sana, local media outlet Dawn reported. Two bullets struck Sana in her chest, severely injuring her. While she was rushed to a hospital, she could not be revived and succumbed to her wounds.
'It was a blind murder'
Rizvi termed the murder a "very challenging case," adding that multiple raids were conducted in a bid to nab the suspect, including three in Islamabad and eight others in other cities.
"It was a blind murder; there were no leads, and things were not clear," Rizvi said. "Attempts were made to give the incident another angle, even though the aim of taking the mobile was to wipe out the clues."
Police claim the suspect had taken Sana's mobile phone with him to delete evidence. The phone and the murder weapon were recovered during the police's investigation.
Rizvi said he appreciated members of the social, electronic and print media, highlighting "many leads" came from journalists who "offered their services in analyzing social media."
Who is Sana Yousuf? How many followers did she have?
Sana Yousuf was a medical student and popular TikTok creator from Chitral, in Pakistan's north, according to Dawn News. The teenager had a million followers on TikTok and more than 500,000 followers on Instagram, and she was well-known for her social media posts.
A quick scroll through her social media accounts shows the young girl living life to the fullest and sharing beauty, fashion and food-related content. The last video on her account was posted hours before her murder, in which she was seen cutting a cake for her birthday.
Saman Shafiq is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at sshafiq@ and follow her on X and Instagram @saman_shafiq7.
