Man kills US-born daughter over TikTok videos after moving family to Pakistan
The suspect said his daughter began creating ‘objectionable’ content on TikTok when she lived in the United States
![The supect told police that his daughter continued to share videos on TikTok after returning to Pakistan](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/19/03/2194468612.jpg)
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Your support makes all the difference.A man who had recently brought his family back to Pakistan from the United States has confessed to shooting dead his teenage daughter, motivated by his disapproval of her TikTok content, police said.
The shooting happened on a street in the southwestern city of Quetta on Tuesday. The suspect, Anwar ul-Haq, initially said that unidentified gunmen shot and killed his American-born, 15-year-old daughter before he confessed to the crime, police official Babar Baloch said.
“Our investigation so far has found that the family had an objection to her dressing, lifestyle, and social gathering,” another police investigator, Zohaib Mohsin, said. “We have her phone. It is locked,” he told Reuters. “We are probing all aspects, including honour killing.”
The family had recently returned to Balochistan province in predominantly Muslim Pakistan, a nation with conservative social norms, having lived in the United States for about 25 years, Baloch said.
The southwestern city of Quetta:
The suspect has U.S. citizenship, the officer said. He said Haq had told him his daughter began creating “objectionable” content on the social media platform TikTok when she lived in the United States.
He told police that she continued to share videos on the platform after returning to Pakistan. Baloch said the main suspect’s brother-in-law had also been arrested in connection with the killing.
Police said they had charged Haq with the murder. They did not offer proof of Haq’s U.S. citizenship except for the suspect’s own testimony and declined to say whether the U.S. embassy had been informed of the incident.
His family declined to respond to a Reuters’ request for comment.
More than 54 million people use TikTok in Pakistan, a nation of 241 million. The government has blocked the video-sharing app several times in recent years over content moderation.
This week hundreds of Pakistani journalists rallied against a proposed law to regulate social media content that they say is aimed at curbing press freedom and controlling the digital landscape.
The law would establish a regulatory authority that would have its own investigation agency and tribunals. Those found to have disseminated false or fake information face prison sentences of up to three years and fines of 2 million rupees ($7,200)
Digital media in Pakistan has already been muffled with measures by telecom authorities to slow down internet speeds, and social media platform X has been blocked for more than a year.
TikTok, which has about 170 million U.S users, was briefly taken offline in America just before a law requiring its Chinese owner ByteDance to either sell it on national security grounds or face a ban took effect on January 19.
![Trump, after taking office on Jan. 20, signed an executive order seeking to delay by 75 days the enforcement of the law on TikTok](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/22/01/Trump_Inauguration_58170.jpg)
Islamabad often takes issue with what it terms “obscene content” with the social media platform, which has lately started complying with requests from Pakistan to remove certain content.
Over 1,000 women are killed each year in Pakistan at the hands of community or family members over perceived damage to “honour”, according to independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
That could involve eloping, posting social media content, fraternising with men, or any other infraction against conservative values relating to women.