MULTAN: A social media celebrity has been murdered by her brother in a suspected honour killing, officials said Saturday, prompting shock and revulsion.
Qandeel Baloch, praised by many of the country’s youth for her willingness to break social taboos but condemned by others, was strangled near the city of Multan, police said.
“Qandeel Baloch has been killed, she was strangled to death by her brother. Apparently it was an incident of honour killing,” Sultan Azam, senior police officer in Multan, told AFP.
Baloch, believed to be in her twenties and whose real name was Fauzia Azeem, had travelled with her family to Muzzafarabad village in central Punjab for the recent Eid holiday.
She was killed there Friday night, police said, adding that the brother, Wasim, was now on the run.
Up to 100 officers gathered outside her family’s home in Muzzafarabad, an AFP reporter there said. Five ambulances were also parked nearby.
“My daughter was innocent, we are innocent, we want justice, why was my daughter killed?” Baloch’s father Azeem Ahmad told reporters.
News of the murder was trending on social media in the country, with liberal users praising Baloch’s bravery, but some conservatives – including users identified as women – condemning her relentless self-promotion.
In one typical comment, Twitter user @JiaAli wrote: “Someone had to do it. She was a disgrace.”
But Facebook user Zaair Hussain said, “RIP Qandeel Baloch. You made us laugh, and you made us applaud,” adding that history would remember her as a ‘provocateur’.
Baloch shot to fame in Pakistan in 2014 after a video of her pouting at the camera and asking “How em looking?” went viral.
Baloch provoked controversy last month after posing for selfies with a high-profile cleric, who was sternly rebuked by the country’s religious affairs ministry.
Earlier this year she vowed to perform a striptease if Pakistan’s cricket team beat India at the World T20, though they later lost.
In her last interview with a local newspaper, she spoke of being married against her will at age 17 to ‘an uneducated man’ with whom she had a child, adding that they later divorced.
She had reportedly spoken of leaving the country out of fear for her safety, with the newspaper reporting that her request to officials for protection had been ignored.
