A man who recently brought his family back to Quetta from the United States on Wednesday confessed to shooting his teenage daughter dead, motivated by his disapproval of her TikTok content, according to the police.
The shooting happened on a street in Quetta on Monday night. The suspect initially said that unidentified gunmen shot and killed his American-born 15-year-old daughter before he confessed to the crime, Gawalmandi Station House Officer (SHO) Babar Baloch said.
“Our investigation so far has found that the family had an objection to her dressing, lifestyle and social gathering,” Serious Crimes Investigation Wing (SCIW) Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Zohaib Mohsin said.
“We have her phone. It is locked,” he told Reuters. “We are probing all aspects, including ‘honour’ killing.”
The family recently returned to Balochistan after having lived in the US for about 25 years, SHO Baloch said. He said that the suspect has US citizenship, adding that the suspect told him the girl began creating “objectionable” content on TikTok when she lived in the US.
The suspect told police that she continued to share videos on the platform after returning to Pakistan.
Baloch said the suspect’s brother-in-law was also arrested in connection with the killing, while police said they had charged the suspect with the murder.
Police did not offer proof of Haq’s US citizenship except for the suspect’s own testimony and declined to say whether the US embassy had been informed of the incident.
A press release by the SCIW said the police was alerted about the incident on Monday night, following which the suspect filed a case at the Gawalmandi Police Station under Pakistan Penal Code Section 302 (intentional murder).
It added that the suspect and his brother-in-law confessed to the crime when they were included in the investigation. It further said the suspect had arrived with his daughter in Lahore from New York on Jan 15 and in Quetta on Jan 22.
His family declined to respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
More than 54 million people use TikTok in Pakistan, with authorities blocking the video-sharing app several times in recent years over content moderation.
Authorities take issue with what they term “obscene content” on the social media platform, which has lately started complying with requests to remove certain content.
Data from the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan showed that in 2024, ‘honour’ killings continued to be a serious issue across Pakistan, with particularly high figures in Sindh and Punjab. From January to November, a total of 346 people fell victim to ‘honour’ crimes in the country.
