Model and TikTok star Sidra Khalid (22) shot dead because of "honor" in a village in Pakistan's Okara district

Sidra Khalid
Born: 2000
shot dead: 1 May 2022
Residence: Faisalabad
Origin: Pakistan
Children: none
Perpetrator: her brother Hamza Khalid

Sidra Khalid is the 22-year-old daughter of a retired inspector from a paramilitary unit and she has a brother and four sisters, two of whom are older than her and married. Sidra has a completed education and is said to have left the parental home, in village 51R in Okara, in the fall of 2021 with a quarrel because she was pursuing a career in showbiz.

In her new hometown of Faisalabad, Sidra is building an independent life. She earns money through modeling and becomes a TikTok star. With modeling assignments in the larger cities of Islamabad and Karachi, business is going so well for her that she regularly sends money to her family.

Sources say that Sidra's parents and brother devised a murder plan that they were going to carry out on Eid-al-fitr if she did not quit her modeling career. The family had told her that she would be forgiven for leaving the parental home, and going against the wishes of the family.

Sidra accepted her family's invitation to go celebrate Eid with them. During a heated argument, Sidra reportedly said she wanted to leave the house. She was not allowed to. Her brother Hamza grabbed a gun and shot her in the head and fled the house.

Police took the body to a hospital for postmortem and started an investigation. Evidence at the crime scene was secured and Hamza was actively hunted. Hamza was arrested and the murder weapon was found. Hamza reportedly confessed to the murder and said that he shot his sister in a fit of rage.

The Renala Khurd police station is leading the investigation in which Sidra's mother is seen as the victim. It is expected that, as in the case of Qandeel Baloch, the mother will forgive her son in the future and that Hamza will effectively not spend more than 6 years in prison.

On social media, Hamza is being praised by a number of young Pakistani men for protecting "honor."

After performing the autopsy, the body was handed over by the police to her family for burial at the local cemetery.

What is an honour killing?

An honour killing is a murder in the name of honour. If a brother murders his sister to restore family honour, it is an honour killing. According to activists, the most common reasons for honour killings are as the victim:

refuses to cooperate in an arranged marriage.
wants to end the relationship.
was the victim of rape or sexual assault.
was accused of having a sexual relationship outside of marriage.

Human rights activists believe that 100,000 honour killings are carried out every year, most of which are not reported to the authorities and some are even deliberately covered up by the authorities themselves, for example because the perpetrators are good friends with local policemen, officials or politicians. Violence against girls and women remains a serious problem in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Serbia and Turkey.