ISLAMABAD, May 19 — An Islamabad sessions court on Monday sentenced Umar Hayat to death for the June 2025 murder of 17-year-old social media influencer Sana Yousaf. Sessions Judge Afzal Majoka announced the high-profile verdict, finding Hayat guilty of shooting the teenager inside her home. In addition to the death penalty, the court handed the convict a 10-year prison sentence and imposed a fine of Rs2 million.
Speaking after the verdict in TikToker Sana Yousaf’s murder case, her mother said, We are very happy that we have received justice pic.twitter.com/Y37S8bfHCq
— P Connect (@ConnectingPak) May 19, 2026
Quick Facts
- Convict Umar Hayat has been sentenced to death, 10 years in prison, and fined Rs2 million.
- The victim, 17-year-old TikTok star Sana Yousaf, was shot dead inside her house on June 2, 2025.
- Police arrested Hayat from Faisalabad a day after the murder, citing a fatal, one-sided obsession.
- The convict had previously confessed to the crime but retracted his statement a day before the verdict.
- Yousaf’s tragic murder last year sparked nationwide outrage regarding women’s safety in Pakistan.
The prosecution successfully argued that the murder stemmed from jealousy and a severe, one-sided obsession that developed after online interactions.
Following the killing last summer, Islamabad Police tracked Hayat — the son of a retired government official and a social media user himself — to Faisalabad. At the time of the arrest, capital police chiefs described the targeted attack as a severe case of “repeated rejections” by the young victim, who had built more than a million followers online with her lifestyle and fashion content.
The trial took a dramatic turn just before its conclusion. Although Hayat had earlier recorded a formal confession before a magistrate under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), he fully retracted that statement during his final testimony before the trial court on Sunday. The court, however, rejected the last-minute reversal and relied on the forensic evidence and earlier admissions to deliver the maximum punishment.
The brutal killing of the teenager had sparked intense nationwide debate on cyber-stalking and the protection of women, making Monday’s swift judicial verdict a closely watched decision.
