Women activists holding posters and photographs of TikTok influencer Sana Yousaf, who was murdered, take part in a demonstration condemning violence against women, in Islamabad on June 5, 2025. FAROOQ NAEEM/AFP via Getty Images

Pakistan police on Friday said a father shot dead his daughter after she refused to delete her account on popular video-sharing app TikTok.

In the Muslim-majority country, women can be subjected to violence by family members for not following strict rules on how to behave in public, including in online spaces.

"The girl's father had asked her to delete her TikTok account. On refusal, he killed her," a police spokesperson told AFP.

According to a police report shared with AFP, investigators said the father killed his 16-year-old daughter on Tuesday "for honor." He was subsequently arrested.

The victim's family initially tried to "portray the murder as a suicide" according to police in the city of Rawalpindi, where the attack happened, next to the capital Islamabad.

Last month, a 17-year-old girl and TikTok influencer with hundreds of thousands of online followers was killed at home by a man whose advances she had refused.

Sana Yousaf had racked up more than a million followers on social media accounts including TikTok, where she shared videos of her favorite cafes, skincare products, and traditional outfits.

TikTok is wildly popular in Pakistan, in part because of its accessibility to a population with low literacy levels.

Women have found both audience and income on the app, which is rare in a country where fewer than a quarter of the women participate in the formal economy.

However, only 30 percent of women in Pakistan own a smartphone compared to twice as many men (58 percent), the largest gap in the world, according to the Mobile Gender Gap Report of 2025.

Pakistani telecommunications authorities have repeatedly blocked or threatened to block the app over what it calls "immoral behavior," amid backlash against LGBTQ and sexual content.

"Honor" killings in Pakistan
In southwestern Balochistan, where tribal law governs many rural areas, a man confessed to orchestrating the murder of his 14-year-old daughter earlier this year over TikTok videos that he said compromised her "honor."

Much of Pakistani society operates under a strict code of "honor," with women beholden to their male relatives over choices around education, employment and who they can marry.

Hundreds of women are killed by men in Pakistan every year for allegedly breaching this code.

Last year, a Pakistani man who allegedly filmed his brother strangling their sister to death was arrested as part of an alleged "honor" killing.

In December 2023, authorities arrested four people who allegedly killed an 18-year-old woman in the purported name of "honor" after a picture of her sitting with a boyfriend went viral on social media. Police said the photo had been doctored and posted on fake social media accounts.

In 2022, the BBC reported the brother of a social media star was acquitted of murdering her. He had been sentenced to life in prison after confessing to the 2016 killing, saying it was because the star had brought shame on the family.

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. Jaffer was sentenced to death.

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