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Agence France-Presse

A 17-year-old TikTok star in Pakistan has been shot dead by a man who had repeatedly contacted her online, according to police.
Sana Yousaf, who turned 17 last week and had more than 1 million followers across her social media accounts, was killed at her home in the capital 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,” Islamabad police chief Syed Ali Nasir Rizvi said during a news conference on Tuesday.
“It was a gruesome and cold-blooded murder,” Rizvi added.












View this post on Instagram























A post shared by sana (@sanayousaf22)



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. She also had more than half a million followers on Instagram.
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.


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Sana Yousaf, who turned 17 last week and had more than 1 million followers across her social media accounts, was killed at her home in Islamabad. Photo: Instagram/sanayousaf22

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A 22-year-old who spent hours loitering outside Sana Yousaf’s home has been arrested on suspicion of murder


A 22-year-old who spent hours loitering outside Sana Yousaf’s home has been arrested on suspicion of murder.
