Pakistan: Teen kills sister after fight over TikTok video

In a terrible event that occurred in Sarai Alamgir town, which is located in Punjab’s Gujrat district, a 14-year-old girl shot and killed her sister over a fight over a TikTok video, according to ARY News. According to the circumstances, while Saba and Maria Afzal were making a video for the well-known social media site, they got into a fight. After the heated dispute, 14-year-old Saba Afzal decided to take dramatic measures and shot her sister. The Saddar Police Station received a complaint from her brother, which led to the filing of a case against the juvenile suspect. This tragic event reminds me of another tragedy that occurred in December, when three young people died while filming a TikTok video close to the Sheikhupura neighbourhood. The sad victims were riding a motorbike while making a TikTok video. They were citizens of Khanqah Dogran city in Safdarabad Tehsil. Unfortunately, the three children tragically died as a result of their motorbike colliding head-on with an approaching car from the opposite direction owing to distraction. Notably, on December 24, Pakistani vernacular media stated that Jamia Binoria Town, a well-known Islamic school in Karachi, the provincial capital of Sindh, issued a fatwa (a religious decree) terming TikTok the largest temptation of the modern period and pronouncing its use illegal and ‘haram’. The organisation listed eight arguments in favour of its position in the fatwa. Delivered online by Jamia Binoria, the fatwa claims that TikTok is forbidden by Shariah and a rising threat to users as a ‘fitna’ (temptation). The Dawn News TV article also mentioned that the app’s inclusion of images and films of animals is prohibited by Sharia law, and that women are the ones who create and share pornographic videos on the platform. The fatwa also denounces the behaviour of men and women creating dance and singing videos on TikTok, which is seen as a time waster and a step towards moral degradation. It is believed that this practice spreads obscenity and nudity. The fatwa issued by Jamia Banoria emphasises that TikTok is a platform where everything may be made fun of and mocked, in addition to having videos that make fun of academics and religion. Religious authorities have previously demanded that TikTok be banned for encouraging immorality, and Pakistan has repeatedly implemented a partial ban on the platform, according to Dawn News TV. The video-sharing social media platform TikTok was banned for five months in 2021 by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, which ran from July to November. According to The Express Tribune, TikTok overturned the restriction after promising to strengthen controls over offensive or immoral content on the network. (With agency inputs)