The father of a teenage Pakistani TikTok influencer shot dead this week in Islamabad said on Wednesday he had wanted her to join the bureaucracy, but she had set her sights on the medical field to serve the people of Pakistan.
Sana Yousaf, 17, was shot dead at her home on Monday evening by another social media influencer, 22-year-old Umar Hayat, after she rejected his repeated advances, Islamabad Police chief Syed Ali Nasir Rizvi told reporters on Tuesday.
Originally from Chitral, around 400 kilometers north of the capital, Yousaf had 1.1 million followers on TikTok and over 600,000 on Instagram. Her videos ranged from lip-syncing to songs to food tastings and makeup tutorials.
The last clip posted to her TikTok account— a montage of her birthday celebration with friends— has already garnered 18.6 million views.
“My wish was for her to go on to do CSS [Central Superior Services],” Syed Yousuf Hasan, her father, told Arab News by phone from his ancestral village of Chuing in Chitral.
“But she insisted that she wanted to go into the medical field so that she could serve her country, Pakistan, and its people more,” he continued. “That was her dream.”
Yousaf was pursuing her goal of becoming a doctor and was enrolled in the Faculty of Science (FSc), a two-year pre-university qualification at the intermediate level.
“She was intelligent, talented and cheerful, and her presence would light up any gathering,” Hasan, a government officer, said. “She was like a son to me, like a brave son.”
Yousaf had been expected to travel to Chitral to celebrate Eidul Azha with her family. Hasan said she was especially close to him, her mother and her younger brother.
Her uncle, Syed Kausar Ali Shah, described her as an “exceptionally talented child” with a strong sense of purpose.
“She had a vision and used to say, ‘Our parents have invested in us, and we will repay that by serving our ancestral region.’”
On Wednesday, an Islamabad district and sessions court remanded Hayat in judicial custody for 14 days, according to a police spokesperson.
Yousaf’s murder has sparked renewed outrage over women’s safety in Pakistan. Activists and rights groups criticized social media users for victim-blaming the teenager as news of her killing broke.
Violence against women is frequently reported in Pakistan, especially in cases involving rejected marriage proposals or women active on social media platforms like TikTok.
Feminist groups and civil society activists have announced protests in several cities on Thursday to demand accountability for Yousaf’s murder.
Hasan, too, is seeking justice.
“If someone enters your home and kills, then there should be no forgiveness for that person,” he said. “Our demand is that he be punished publicly in the same way he treated us.”
Shah said the family and the people of Chitral were proud of Yousaf for standing her ground.
“She was our whole world,” he said, his voice breaking. “She was a flower that was snatched from us.”