Urooj Niazi 
In a tragic incident highlighting a long-standing issue of honor killings in Pakistan, a Pakistani-American dad admitted to shooting his teenage girl dead because of some social media activity. Anwar ul-Haq, who recently shifted his family to Quetta after spending 25 years in the United States, admitted killing his daughter Hira Anwar, aged 13-14, because he found her videos on TikTok “objectionable.”
Police investigators have declared that the family was against Hira’s dressing, lifestyle, and society gatherings. The girl had been quite active on TikTok even before the family returned to Pakistan. At first, ul-Haq tried to deceive the investigators claiming that unidentified men opened fire on him. His brother-in-law has also been arrested in this regard.
It falls into the recent strengthened honor killing laws of Pakistan, with a mandatory life sentence for the culprits. The law was also amended in 2016, removing pardon possibilities from the victims’ families in such cases. It is the latest in a rather disturbing pattern of honor killings in Pakistan, where hundreds, mainly women, die every year at the hands of family members who claim that they are defending their honor.
