IT has been over a week since social media influencer Sana Yousaf was murdered in cold blood at her home. The details of the TikToker’s life and death have been broadcast all over the world. Her alleged attacker has been arrested.

Pakistani social and news media has been discussing the case at length. Yousaf was killed a few days after her 17th birthday. Obsessed with her, the suspected murderer, Umar Hayat, a wannabe social media influencer, had harassed Yousaf for some time. When she rebuffed him on the occasion of her birthday, he became angry and, ultimately, homicidal.

Everyone has seen the CCTV footage of the gun-toting Hayat walking down the street in front of Yousaf’s house. Forcing his way inside the Yousaf home, he managed to get to Sana Yousaf. He shot her twice. She began bleeding uncontrollably. By the time she was taken to hospital, it was too late.

Hayat, in the meantime, fled to Faisalabad, where he was nabbed. He is said to have confessed to his crime.

Stalking is the ultimate act of entitlement. It expresses in the bluntest and most flagrant way the idea that a person is entitled to the attention and body of the person who is being stalked. In this case, that person was a female child. As is the way of the patriarchal morality police in Pakistan, no sooner had the murder occurred and the news released on social media, self-styled commentators, full of bluster and blather whenever it comes to women in the public eye, began with their usual censure. Unable to come to terms with women active on social media and creating content, they blamed the victim, shrugging away the heinous crime that had been committed.

Misogyny is a national sport in Pakistan.

This second tragedy —that of Pakistani men blaming the dead victim even before her body is cold, compounds the original one. Misogyny is a national sport in Pakistan. Whenever women make any sort of collective effort to draw attention to the severe discrimination and lack of physical security they face in society, they are denounced. ‘Feminism’ is touted as a bad word, even though its essential effort is to highlight the fact that women are treated unequally in this society.

Nearly every Pakistani woman alive has experienced harassment from men, whether it is the stares on the street, unnecessary strictures at home, or constant curiosity about her at work. Women in Pakistan have to perfect scowls they can paste on their faces every time they leave their home because the mistake of smiling can persuade some man that he can pursue and harass and stalk them. The inboxes of young women in the country are full of unwanted attention and requests from men. In Sana Yousaf’s case, a man who could not handle rejection decided that the child who had rebuffed him had to be eliminated.

This tragedy, and so many others like it, even if occurring in less public ways, makes it impossible not to wonder at the lethality of the male ego. Women face rejection just like men do, but they never ever seem to decide that whoever rejected or rebuffed them must have their lives destroyed or taken away. In contrast, instances of men who have been rejected and then turned to violence are a dime a dozen.

Despite this, the men that have chosen to point fingers at Sana Yousaf, or other female TikTokers or feminists in general, never once pause to consider this important and crucial difference. Such is the toxicity of a culture that is apologetic for men even when they deliberately take the lives of women.

Female commentators and content creators in Pakistan should take this moment to highlight insta­nces of the toxic male behaviour they enco­u­nter. When everyone, from students, teachers, housewives, office workers, doctors and lawyers, posts about their harassment at the hands of men who feel they are entitled to have their attention, their bodies and their lives, then Sana Yousaf’s death can be seen as one incident in an all-encompassing women-hating ethos.

The accused in Yousaf’s murder will face justice, but many others like him, who also kill, get away. Tacit agreements among men lead them to shelter other men even when they know that many of them are abusers, harassers, stalkers and woman haters. It is so culturally acceptable to hate women in Pakistan that it can be done openly without any fear of censure or admonishment. Incidents like Yousaf’s death expose this ugly truth and the terrible cost that they can impose on innocent women.

In her TikToks, Sana Yousaf is wholesome and fresh-faced, excited about hanging out with her friends or celebrating her birthday. That life is no more, and once again millions of girls like her have been told that being a girl and being happy can get them killed in Pakistan.

The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.
rafia.zakaria@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2025