ON Tuesday, July 8, 2025, a few men from the Gizri police station arrived at a flat in DHA Karachi’s Ittehad Commercial Area. It was around 3.15 in the afternoon, and the men had been sent there on the orders of a local court to evict a tenant. When they knocked on the door, no one responded. This was the residence of 32-year-old model and actress Humaira Asghar Ali, who had been reported by her landlord for failing to pay rent for the past six months. When the police eventually gained entry, they found Asghar Ali lying on the floor of her bedroom. She was dead — and according to police officials, had been for some time.
The investigation is still ongoing. However, DIG South Syed Asad Raza told a TV news channel that there were no signs of forced entry. The doors to the apartment, including the one leading to the balcony, were locked from the inside — although this could have been done by someone with a key who exited and locked the door behind them. Police surgeon Dr Sumaiyya Syed said that the body was in an advanced stage of decomposition and that forensic and DNA analysis would be conducted. The post-mortem report has been reserved pending the results of toxicology and forensic testing.
In an interview with a media outlet, SSP South Mehzor Ali said the police had used the deceased’s phone to retrieve contact numbers for her next of kin.
Upon contacting them, the police were reportedly told by Asghar Ali’s parents that they had disowned their daughter and would not be collecting her body. However, her family members later collected the body and she was buried in Lahore on July 11. The SSP also noted that she had little contact with her neighbours. Some reported a foul smell emanating from the apartment. According to them, she wasn’t very friendly — though such comments should be taken with a grain of salt. In Pakistan, a young woman living alone is often treated with suspicion no matter how discreet or respectful she is. The scrutiny she faces is less about her conduct and more about the audacity of her independence.
Humaira Asghar Ali’s case is more fundamentally about how Pakistani society treats women who choose paths that diverge from the narrow values of many families.
Since the news broke, at least one actress, Sonia Hussain, had posted publicly, requesting the police entrust her with Asghar Ali’s body so she could perform her final rites as a fellow human being and Muslim sister.
Others celebrities have also begun posting statements about the crumbling of family structures and the wider apathy that permeates society. These observations contain some truth. But Asghar Ali’s case is more fundamentally about how Pakistani society treats women who choose paths that diverge from the narrow, conservative, and frequently misogynistic values of many families. Whether a woman seeks a career in show business, wants to be educated, works outside the home, or even just maintains a social media presence — all are treated as moral failures. The mere act of choosing the conditions of one’s own life is still, in many families, considered a crime for women.
Evidence for this was seen the very same day, in Rawalpindi, when a man named Ikhlaq Ahmed murdered his 16-year-old daughter, Mehak Shehzadi, for refusing to delete her TikTok account. According to reports, Mehak had been warned multiple times by her father. When he discovered that she had not complied, he reportedly took a weapon and shot her in cold blood. The family’s attempt to stage it as suicide only further underscores the deep shame and silence that surround these acts of honour-based violence. An FIR was eventually registered against the father.
These cases are not about “dying alone”; they are about the hatred directed at women in Pakistan who choose public lives. Just a month earlier, the murder of TikToker Sana Yousaf also made headlines. In her case, many believed — and still believe — that she deserved to die simply because she chose to be visible on social media. Whether it is disowning a daughter, refusing to burying her, killing her for her disobedience, or shaming her for existing online — these are all signs of a society saturated with misogyny.
It is painful to die alone, but only God knows the circumstances of our death. The circumstances of women’s lives, however, are shaped by society. In Humaira Asghar Ali’s case, we may never know what caused her death.
What Pakistan — and indeed the world needs — is a reckoning. Women often choose to live alone not because they want to, but because their “loved ones” make their lives a living hell. In many cases, it is better to live and die alone than to exist under constant fear, coercion, and emotional abuse — the conditions many men consider the “proper” way to “keep women in line.”
Women and girls have the right to choose their own paths in life. The ones to be pitied are not those who live or die alone — but those who cannot summon the basic decency to honour their humanity. It is not women’s solitude that should frighten us — it is the callousness of a society where such solitude is often the only refuge from humiliation and harm.
The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.
Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2025
