By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD Police have arrested a 22-year-old man on Tuesday in the fatal shooting of 17-year-old social media influencer Sana Yousaf, who was killed in her home a day earlier.
The suspect, nabbed in Faisalabad after an intensive police hunt, confessed to the crime, officials said, capping a swift investigation into a murder that has stunned the capital.
In a press briefing on Tuesday, Islamabad’s top police official, Inspector General (IG) Syed Ali Nasir Rizvi, painted a chilling portrait of the suspect, calling him a “beast” and a “cold-blooded murderer” now firmly in “the law’s grip.”
“Before getting into the motive, I should make it clear that we have arrested [the suspect] and recovered the weapon of offense,” Rizvi said.
The police chief described the killing as the culmination of “repeated rejections,” detailing how the man had persistently sought to “become friends” with Sana, only to be turned away time and again. “Basically, it was a case of repeated rejections.”
“He tried his best to contact her on her birthday on May 29,” Rizvi said. “He reached her home and tried to meet her for seven to eight hours but failed.” Undeterred, the suspect returned on Monday, spending another fruitless stretch attempting to see her. “First, it was a cellular rejection. Now, it was a physical mode of rejection,” the IG said.
The suspect, who completed matriculation and hails from a lower-middle-income family with “no source of income,” according to Rizvi, was apprehended after an intensive police operation. Authorities conducted 11 raids, three in Islamabad and eight across Punjab, with multiple sweeps in Faisalabad, before capturing him.
The murder weapon, a pistol, and Sana’s mobile phone, which he had taken to “wipe out the clues,” were recovered, offering critical evidence in the investigation.
“It was a blind murder; there was no clue, things were not clear, and it was further attempted to give it another angle,” he said, noting the suspect’s efforts to mislead authorities by taking Sana’s phone. Yet, within a day, seven police teams and the Crime Investigation Agency, bolstered by “many leads” from journalists across social, electronic, and print media, cracked the case. “Arresting the perpetrator in the shortest time possible was necessary,” Rizvi added.
The official police report, filed Monday evening at Sumbal police station by Sana’s mother, Farzana Yousaf provides a harrowing account of the attack.
Farzana recounted how a man wielding a pistol burst into their home around 5 p.m. and “shot straight at my daughter with the intention to kill.” Two bullets struck Sana in the chest, inflicting wounds so severe that she succumbed despite being rushed to a hospital.
The mother described the assailant as having a “smart appearance, moderate physique and height,” dressed in a black shirt and pants. She and her sister-in-law, Lateefa Shah, who was visiting, witnessed the shooting and stand ready to identify the suspect.
Sana, a rising star with nearly 800,000 TikTok followers and almost 500,000 on Instagram, had turned her social media presence into a vibrant platform.
Rizvi seized said it is “necessary to give a clear message that if any of our sister or daughter or youngster is becoming a social media influencer, and pursuing it as a profession, […] as a hobby and even as their bread and butter, we have to encourage it”.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi confirmed the breakthrough in a Tuesday post on X, saying that “the incident occurred yesterday in Islamabad when a young girl was murdered by a masked accused.” He noted the suspect was arrested around noon and that police had secured both the murder weapon and Sana’s mobile phone. “The suspect has confessed to the murder,” Naqvi stated.
Pakistani news outlets frequently report cases of violence against women, particularly for turning down marriage proposals or for uploading videos on TikTok and other social media platforms.
Police in southwestern province in January arrested a man for being involved in murdering his 14-year-old daughter, an American citizen, for posting “objectionable” videos on TikTok. More than 54 million people use TikTok in conservative Pakistan.
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