"I'm going through a divorce" - with this sentence, Sania Khan described herself on her TikTok profile. On the video app, the professional photographer kept talking about the breakup with her husband. She was apparently murdered by him afterwards.
As the "Chicago Sun-Time" reports, citing police investigations, Khan's estranged husband from Atlanta, Georgia, traveled more than a thousand kilometers to Chicago, broke into his ex-wife's house and shot her. He then killed himself. Khan was pronounced dead at the scene, she was only 29 years old. Her 36-year-old husband died in hospital from injuries sustained in a self-inflicted headshot.
The couple reportedly split last winter after a year of marriage, reports ABC News. Khan filed for divorce. On her TikTok account, she spoke openly about the difficulties in her marriage and her new life after the breakup. She also gave other women advice on which criteria to be suspicious of in men. Sania Khan, like her husband, who is of Pakistani descent, had had many negative reactions to her divorce in her family and the South Asian community, she reported on TikTok. Her family also thinks she dresses "like a prostitute," said the woman, who has now been the victim of femicide.
"Divorce as a South Asian woman sometimes feels like you've failed in life," she says in a video. She lamented the "lack of emotional support" from her community and the pressure of having to stay with someone for fear of people's gossip. "It makes it harder for women to end marriages they shouldn't have started in the first place."
During the relationship, her husband is said to have behaved in an abusive and manipulative manner. "I've never seen anyone as spirited as her being so manipulated and controlled by someone else," a friend told Time. "He checked what clothes she was wearing. He watched who she was hanging out with and how she presented herself."
Sources: Chicago Sun Times / ABC News / Sania Khan on TikTok
