Pakistani teen dies in TikTok fake suicide stunt gone wrong
JournalismPakistan.com | Published: 21 May 2021
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A Pakistani teenager tragically died while attempting a dangerous TikTok stunt. Hamidullah, 19, accidentally shot himself with a loaded pistol during the filming.Summary
PESHAWAR—A young Pakistani was killed as he pretended to shoot himself while being filmed by friends for a TikTok video, police said.
Hamidullah, 19, who police said was well-known locally on social media, held a friend's pistol to his temple and pulled the trigger, unaware the gun was loaded.
"The young man died on spot," said Badshah Hazrat, a senior police official in the Swat Valley.
While the clip of the incident was not uploaded to TikTok, police said friends circulated it among themselves and it soon spread further afield.
"The young man was locally famous and active on TikTok," Hazrat told AFP.
The 19-year-old had more than 8,000 followers and posted nearly 600 TikTok clips.
Most were of him playing pranks with friends, cricket, or featured life in the rugged and picturesque valley.
The death was just the latest incident of a social media stunt gone wrong in Pakistan.
A security guard was killed in Karachi last year while toying with his rifle as he filmed a TikTok clip, while in January another teenager died after being struck by a train while filming for the app in Rawalpindi. — AFP
KEY POINTS:
- 19-year-old Hamidullah died in a TikTok video gone wrong.
- He accidentally shot himself with a friend's loaded pistol.
- The incident occurred in the Swat Valley, Pakistan.
- Hamidullah was an active TikTok user with over 8,000 followers.
- This is part of a troubling trend of dangerous social media stunts in Pakistan.
