Claim: A video shows Sana Yousaf’s mother and other women mourning at her funeral.
Fact: The video first appeared online in May 2025, and, therefore, is unrelated to Sana Yousaf’s funeral.
A video was shared online claiming to show Sana Yousaf’s mother and other family members mourning around her coffin. The video includes the following text: “ثنا یوسف کی والدہ اور فیملی اللہ ثنا يوسف کی مغفرت فرمائے اور فیملی کو صبر عطاء فرمائے”
[Translation: May Allah forgive Sana Yousaf and grant patience to her mother and family.]
Who is Sana Yousaf?
Sana Yousaf was a 17 year-old social media influencer from Chitral, known for her popular TikTok and Instagram accounts where she had amassed a wide following. On 2 June 2025, Yousaf was shot twice in the chest inside her home in Islamabad, according to the police. She succumbed to her injuries before she could be taken to the hospital. The attacker entered the house and shot Yousaf dead around 5 pm, according to the first information report (FIR) filed by her mother.
The deceased’s father, Syed Yousaf Hassan, told the BBC she was his only daughter, and was “very brave.” He added that she had never mentioned Hayat, nor any threatening behaviour, before she was killed.
Yousaf’s family gathered in Chitral where she was buried, according to the BBC’s report from 4 June.
Islamabad’s Inspector General of Police (IGP), Syed Ali Nasir Rizvi, described the incident as a “gruesome and cold-blooded murder,” emphasising that the suspect, Umar Hayat, had persistently attempted to contact Yousaf and was rejected multiple times. Rizvi stated, “It was a case of repeated rejections. The boy was trying to reach out to her time and again”. He further noted that Hayat had loitered outside Yousaf’s residence for hours before the attack.
Islamabad police swiftly arrested the 22 year-old suspect, who took Yousaf’s phone in an attempt to “destroy evidence”, according to Islamabad’s IGP. However, the police recovered the weapon and the device, and said Hayat had confessed to the crime.
Human rights activists have condemned the murder as an act of deep-rooted misogyny and patriarchal violence in Pakistani society. Dr Farzana Bari, a prominent human rights activist, stated, “Every day, women are killed simply for being women. Every third woman in this country faces gender-based violence. When will it end?”.
Aseefa Bhutto-Zardari, First Lady and Member of the National Assembly, also condemned the killing, urging that such incidents should not silence girls or discourage them from pursuing their dreams. She emphasised the need for societal change to protect and empower women.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check first noted that several users in the comments had pointed out the video was not from Sana Yousaf’s funeral.
To verify this, we then searched for footage from Yousaf’s funeral shared by credible news outlets. While some of the videos show her coffin being carried away and her burial, none show the funeral inside a home.
We then reverse-searched keyframes from the viral video and found that the same clip had appeared on TikTok as early as 28 May 2025. The video contained an Urdu caption:
“مشہور ٹک ٹاک اسٹار زین علی بخاری کار حادثے میں جاں بحق”
[Translation: Popular TikTok star Zain Ali Bukhari passed away in a car accident.]
Searching for news reports on Zain Ali Bukhari’s death did not yield any news reports from credible sources. Soch Fact Check could not independently verify claims of such an individual’s death or whether the TikTok post is related to it. However, since the video appeared online nearly a week before Sana Yousaf’s killing, it cannot have any connection with her funeral.
Additionally, Soch Fact Check reviewed recent content on Yousaf’s social media accounts to identify her mother. In September 2024, Yousaf shared a video with the caption “Mama k sath” [With Mama], identifying the woman in the clip as her mother. However, none of the women in the video being fact-checked resemble the woman shown in Yousaf’s Instagram video.
Soch Fact Check therefore confirms that the video in the claim does not show Sana Yousaf’s mother or her funeral.
Virality
The video was shared here (archive) on Facebook.
On Instagram, it was shared here (archive).
Conclusion: The viral video does not show Sana Yousaf’s mother or her funeral. It surfaced online nearly a week before her killing in a different context.
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Background image in cover photo: Geo News
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