Remembering Qandeel Baloch on her death anniversary

Qandeel Baloch, Pakistan’s first female social media celebrity, who belonged to a working class rural family from the province of Punjab and had over 750,000 followers on Facebook alone, was strangled to death by her brother in what the police described as an “honor killing” on 15^th July, 2016.

Baloch’s exponential rise to fame began with her posting narcissistic selfies and videos in which she asks viewers how she is looking; she then entered the national consciousness by promising internationally acclaimed cricketer Shahid Afridi a striptease if he defeated India in a regional tournament. For Baloch, things took a dangerous turn when she dabbled in the political realm by exposing the religious clergy’s sexual perversions, which resulted in her receiving numerous death threats.

In a press conference held shortly after, she pleaded with the government for protection, saying that she was receiving threatening phone calls and messages, saying she had “exposed” the cleric for what she claimed he truly was: a hypocrite who used Islam to further his interests.

When news broke of Qandeel’s murder, a television channel asked Mufti Qavi for his reaction.

“In the future, before you humiliate the clergy, you should remind yourself of this woman’s fate,” he warned.

Her brother felt that the videos and photographs she had been posting online brought disrespect to their family.

After he strangled his sister at their home in Multan while their parents slept, Waseem returned to their ancestral village of Shah Sadar Din, a little over two hours drive away, where he made no effort to hide.

According to many reports, he was spotted riding around on his motorbike in the village’s main market the morning after he killed his sister. He needed people in the village to know what he had done.

Baloch’s death may be long remembered by those fighting for justice in “honor killing” cases because in the wake of her death the government has, yet again, promised stricter laws regarding “honor killings.”

Baloch, born with the name Fauzia Azeem, hailed from Shah Saddardin — a little-known village that only entered the national imagination after Baloch was buried there. By her own admission, and that of her parents, she belonged to a conservative family, that she herself supported. Qandeel bought her parents a house in Multan (the same house in which her brother drugged her and her parents and then strangled her while she slept), and financed a younger sister’s wedding.

It should be noted that Baloch was not the only Pakistani woman to be deemed as “bold” by the media. There have been others before her: Mathira, Meera, Veena Malik, to name a few. But Baloch was different in that she was unapologetic and unabashed by people calling her out.

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