Pakistani father kills daughter for refusing to delete TikTok account

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

The Rawalpindi police received information that the accused had asked his 16-year-old daughter to delete her TikTok account and shot her dead for refusing to do so.

 "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 honour." 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.

The accused, who went into the hiding after the incident, was nabbed by the police, he added.

TikTok is wildly popular in Pakistan, in part because of its accessibility to a population with low literacy levels. On it, women have found both audience and income, rare in a country where fewer than a quarter of the women participate in the formal economy.

 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 favourite 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 per cent 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 behaviour," amid backlash against LGBTQ and sexual content.

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 "honour."

Agence France-Presse