KARACHI: The father of a teenage Pakistani TikTok influencer shot dead this week in Islamabad said on Wednesday he had wanted her to join the bureaucracy, but she had set her sights on the medical field to serve the people of Pakistan.

Sana Yousaf, 17, was shot dead at her home on Monday evening by another social media influencer, 22-year-old Umar Hayat, after she rejected his repeated advances, Islamabad Police chief Syed Ali Nasir Rizvi told reporters on Tuesday.

Originally from Chitral, around 400 kilometers north of the capital, Yousaf had 1.1 million followers on TikTok and over 600,000 on Instagram. Her videos ranged from lip-syncing to songs to food tastings and makeup tutorials.

The last clip posted to her TikTok account— a montage of her birthday celebration with friends— has already garnered 18.6 million views.

“My wish was for her to go on to do CSS [Central Superior Services],” Syed Yousuf Hasan, her father, told Arab News by phone from his ancestral village of Chuing in Chitral.

“But she insisted that she wanted to go into the medical field so that she could serve her country, Pakistan, and its people more,” he continued. “That was her dream.”

Yousaf was pursuing her goal of becoming a doctor and was enrolled in the Faculty of Science (FSc), a two-year pre-university qualification at the intermediate level.

“She was intelligent, talented and cheerful, and her presence would light up any gathering,” Hasan, a government officer, said. “She was like a son to me, like a brave son.”

Yousaf had been expected to travel to Chitral to celebrate Eid Al-Adha with her family. Hasan said she was especially close to him, her mother and her younger brother.

Her uncle, Syed Kausar Ali Shah, described her as an “exceptionally talented child” with a strong sense of purpose.

“She had a vision and used to say, ‘Our parents have invested in us, and we will repay that by serving our ancestral region.’”

‘NO FORGIVENESS’

On Wednesday, an Islamabad district and sessions court remanded Hayat in judicial custody for 14 days, according to a police spokesperson.

Yousaf’s murder has sparked renewed outrage over women’s safety in Pakistan. Activists and rights groups criticized social media users for victim-blaming the teenager as news of her killing broke.

Violence against women is frequently reported in Pakistan, especially in cases involving rejected marriage proposals or women active on social media platforms like TikTok.

Feminist groups and civil society activists have announced protests in several cities on Thursday to demand accountability for Yousaf’s murder.

Hasan, too, is seeking justice.

“If someone enters your home and kills, then there should be no forgiveness for that person,” he said. “Our demand is that he be punished publicly in the same way he treated us.”

Shah said the family and the people of Chitral were proud of Yousaf for standing her ground.

“She was our whole world,” he said, his voice breaking. “She was a flower that was snatched from us.”

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Wednesday condemned Washington’s decision to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, describing it as tacit approval for the “continued annihilation” of Palestinians, while also denouncing the storming of Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque by Israeli settlers this week.

The US blocked a draft resolution tabled by the 10 elected members of the Security Council, which called for an “immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” between Israeli forces and Hamas, along with unhindered humanitarian access across the war-battered enclave.

The United States said it would not support any measure that did not include provisions for Hamas to disarm and withdraw from Gaza.

Reacting to the US decision, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, regretted the council’s failure to adopt the resolution tabled by its ten elected members “to address one of the most grave and sustained humanitarian catastrophes of our time.”

“Let us be clear: this failure will not go down in records as a mere procedural footnote,” he told the council. “It will be remembered as complicity, a green light for continued annihilation, a moment where the entire world was expecting action, but yet again, this Council was blocked and prevented by one member from carrying out its responsibility.”

Calling the humanitarian situation in Gaza a collapse of both international law and moral responsibility, Ahmad cited figures of over 54,000 civilian deaths, including 28,000 women and girls and 18,000 children, with nearly 100 Palestinians reported killed in the last 24 hours alone.

He said the enclave had been “decimated,” with famine, disease and displacement spreading faster than aid could arrive.
The ambassador rejected arguments that called for delaying action to allow negotiations to proceed, questioning how much more “space filled with rubble, graves and the anguished cries of children” would be needed before meaningful intervention took place.

He reiterated Pakistan’s support for a ceasefire, unimpeded humanitarian access to Gaza and a negotiated two-state solution based on pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as the capital of a sovereign Palestinian state.

Ahmed said the international community had spoken clearly through the General Assembly and the International Court of Justice, while the Security Council remained “muzzled.”

AL-AQSA MOSQUE STORMING

In a separate statement issued in Islamabad, Pakistan’s foreign ministry condemned the storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem by Israeli settlers this week, calling it a “direct assault” on the sanctity and legal status of one of Islam’s holiest sites.

According to media reports, dozens of Israeli settlers entered the mosque compound and performed Talmudic rituals, prompting condemnation from several Muslim-majority countries.

“These reprehensible acts, including violations at multiple entrances of the Mosque, are a direct assault on the sanctity, historical character, and legal status of the revered Muslim holy site,” the foreign ministry said, warning that such actions could ignite further unrest in an already volatile region.

The ministry also expressed concern over the continued targeting of civilians in Gaza, saying that nearly 100 Palestinians had been killed in the span of a single day, including people waiting at food distribution points.

It noted that Israeli forces were operating with impunity and called for their international accountability.

Reaffirming Pakistan’s position on the conflict, the ministry called for immediate steps to halt the violence, ensure access to humanitarian assistance and revive efforts toward a political resolution to the conflict.