The horrifying story of Sania Khan, the US woman killed by ex-husband for talking about divorce on TikTok

The story of a 29-year-old woman murdered by her ex-husband for speaking about her divorce on Tik-Tok is sending shockwaves throughout the US  South Asian community. In July, Sania Khan and her ex-husband Raheel Ahmad, 36, were found by police in her Chicago apartment. Khan was dead and Ahmad was mortally wounded, as per the Chicago Sun-Times. Authorities ruled the incident a murder-suicide. As per The New York Post, the pair divorced in May after being married for less than a year. Ahmad, from Alpharetta in Georgia, travelled to Illinois last week before committing the violent act, as per the report. Let’s take a closer look at this horrifying tale: Who was Sania Khan? As per Huffington Post, Khan, the child of Pakistani immigrants, kicked off her career as a social worker and advocate for low-income families. She later worked as a flight attendant to support her burgeoning career as a photographer. “My life truly began the day I purchased my first DSLR,” Khan wrote on her website. “Sometimes when I’m sad I think about how proud my younger self would be of the woman I’ve become,” Khan wrote in a post. “I followed my dreams to be a photographer, am the most confident I’ve ever been, and chose myself over any man.”

Khan grew up in Tennessee before moving to Chicago with her then husband in 2021.

A fierce advocate for women’s rights, she was dedicated to eradicating divorce stigma and, described as a close friend as “liquid sunshine”, as per the report. Posting on TikTok Khan had been posting videos on TikTok about leaving a toxic marriage, moving on with her life as well as the obstacles she’d been facing from her family and community. [caption id=“attachment_11041201” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Sania Khan posted about her failed marriage and divorce on TikTok. Image courtesy: TikTok[/caption] “Going through a divorce as a South Asian woman feels like you failed at life sometimes,” Khan wrote in a TikTok posted last month. “The way the community labels you, the lack of emotional support you receive and the pressure to stay with someone because ‘what will people say’ is isolating. It makes it harder for women to leave marriages that they shouldn’t have been in to begin with.” “Women are always expected to stay silent,” Khan wrote in another post.

“It’s what keeps us in messed-up situations in the first place.”  

As per Fox News, in another recent post Khan displayed a tattoo of the Roman numerals for the number 28, saying it was the year she got married, filed for divorce, and “almost died.” Turbulent marriage “They had a fabulous, big, fat Pakistani wedding,” a childhood friend told BBC. “But the marriage was built on a foundation of lies and manipulation.” Khan’s friends told the BBC Ahmad had long-standing mental health issues. Her friends further told the outlet that Khan and Ahmad’s incompatibility had been obscured by the fact that they were in a long-distance relationship before they got married. Gabriella Bordó, one of Khan’s best friends, told Time Magazine: “I didn’t see someone as spirited as her being so manipulated or controlled by someone but she was. He monitored what she wore. He was wary about who she hung out with, how she presented herself.” In December, Khan told her friend she felt unsafe and that Ahmad had a mental-health crisis. As per Huffington Post, Khan said she was shunned by her community when she was trying to obtain a divorce with family members saying her actions would let ‘the devil win’ and others even threatening suicide. Bordó old Time Magazine, “[Khan] was encouraged to stay, pleaded with to stay, by her family and ex-husband’s family.

Such was the pushback she was facing that Khan considered getting a restraining order against Ahmed, as per the report.  

As per Fox News, Ahmad’s family had in July filed a missing persons complaint. Georgia Police told their Chicago counterparts that the 36-year-old had gone to Chicago (more than 1,100 kilometres) “to salvage the marriage”, as per the report. But Bordó pushes back against that narrative. “She was leaving. They hadn’t lived together for a long time. She had a home here with me. I was there to bring her home. There was no reconciling,” Bordó told Time Magazine. “This man did not go there to salvage a marriage. He went there with a gun for a reason. He knew I was coming. My social media and hers is completely public. It was his last opportunity and he took it.” [caption id=“attachment_11041211” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Sania Khan spoke of her family and community not supporting her during her divorce. Image courtesy: TikTok[/caption] For many women in the South Asian community, Khan’s tale rings familiar. “I could see myself in her,” one Marathi woman who lives in the US told 7News. “For her to have not only left him, but being able to survive and be happy and do well, that was not something he could live with.” The woman, speaking anonymously, , said her ex-husband had threatened to harm her and her children. “He wouldn’t have hesitated to kill me,” she added Experts speak Experts say Khan’s posts and her case brings to the fore the need for the South Asian community to have a dialogue about the burden placed on women in such matters. “There’s a lot of cultural pressure around the impacted family and how it looks to the outside world,” Neha Gill, executive director of Apna Ghar, a Chicago-based organisation that offers culturally sensitive services to predominantly South Asian women facing intimate partner abuse, told BBC. Houston area survivor organisation Daya executive director Rachna Khare told 7News: “There’s this stigma in our community that puts pressure on women to sacrifice … to sacrifice their emotional and physical well-being for the good of others.

“And while we all want to be altruistic human beings, it’s an undue burden on women specifically.”  

“We need to step up and create a deeper sense of safety for survivors and for individuals who want to leave relationships,” said Mehra, executive director of Sakhi, a survivor-led South Asian community organization that uplifts survivors of gender-based violence, told Huffington Post. With inputs from agencies Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram .