Young Pakistani TikTok star takes own life after ‘fan’ rejects marriage proposal

A Pakistani TikTok star from Peshawar city has committed suicide after a female fan rejected his marriage proposal, a media report said.

Twenty-year-old Shahzad Ahmad, who had over a million followers on the Chinese video-sharing app, had tried to commit suicide in the recent past but was saved, a report said.

“He was in love with a girl but her father turned down his marriage proposal repeatedly after which Shahzad was really depressed and he committed suicide,” the victim’s brother Sajjad said in a complaint he had filed.

One of Shahzad’s friend told local media: “Two years ago, he was approached by a girl who claimed to be a fan. This relation developed into a friendship soon but the girl was just a 16-year-old studying in school.

“He immediately proposed her but his proposal was turned down on the basis of the girl’s age.”

Pakistan has once again banned TikTok, this time for allegedly peddling vulgarity and spreading objectionable content on its platform.

The country banned the ByteDance-owned platform in October 2020 for a brief 10-day period for hosting “immoral” and “indecent” videos.

“In respectful compliance to the orders of the Peshawar High Court (PHC), PTA has issued directions to the service providers to immediately block access to the TikTok App.

During the hearing of a case, the PHC has ordered for the blocking of App,” the Pakistan telecommunication Authority (PTA) said in a tweet late on Thursday.
According to a report, Peshawar High Court Chief Justice Qaiser Rashid Khan accused TikTok of hosting content “unacceptable for Pakistani society.”

Khan said the platform engaged in “peddling vulgarity” and ordered the ban take effect immediately during a hearing on Thursday.

TikTok said in a statement that it “is built upon the foundation of creative expression, with strong safeguards in place to keep inappropriate content off the platform.”

The app has been installed over 40 million times in Pakistan.

Indo-Asian News Service