Sania Khan, a 29-year-old woman of Pakistani descent, was murdered by her husband in Chicago after she had shared details about her divorce and path to healing on social media - according to media accounts.
The Pakistani-American, who had recently relocated to Chicago, was reportedly shot by her ex-husband, 36-year-old Raheel Ahmed, who had come from his house in Alpharetta, according to the police report.
According to her own posts on TikTok, Khan's marriage lasted less than a year before she filed for divorce.
"Going through a divorce as a South Asian Woman feels like you failed at life sometimes," she wrote in a video posted on social media.
"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," she further said.
According to the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, Haider Farooq Khan, Sania's father, on Thursday, made a brief announcement on her Facebook page.
"My oldest daughter Sania Khan passed away. Her funeral will be on Thursday after Asr prayer, at Chattanooga Islamic center. Please keep us in your duaa," the post read.
According to ABC News, Chicago police reported that when officers arrived last Monday in the 200 block of E. Ohio street, they discovered a man and a woman inside a home with gunshot wounds to the heads. The male had been taken to Northwestern Hospital where he died from his injuries, and a weapon was found at the site, according to the police report. The woman was pronounced dead at the scene.
In its Annual World Report 2022, Human Rights Watch (HRW) detailed claims of widespread rights violations against women and children in Pakistan, which is ranked 167th out of 170 nations in Georgetown University's Global Women, Peace and Security index.
Data from the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey for 2017–18 show that 28% of women between the ages of 15 and 49 had ever been the victim of intimate relationship abuse.
(With ANI inputs)
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