By Alia Zarar Khan
Sana’s case has left a deep and unsettling imprint on public consciousness, the kind that does not fade easily because it sits at the intersection of youth, visibility, obsession and violence. Many people first encountered her not through personal acquaintance but through social media, where her presence appeared effortless and luminous. She was widely described as beautiful, lively and full of promise, someone whose online life seemed to reflect a continuous horizon of possibility. That is partly why the shock of her death has resonated so widely. It is not only the loss of a young life, but the sudden rupture of an image that many had come to associate with joy and aspiration.
Yet beyond the digital gaze, what remains is a far more difficult set of questions about safety, entitlement and the boundaries that society repeatedly fails to enforce. Sana’s story has become another entry in a growing catalogue of cases where obsession, harassment and stalking escalate into irreversible harm. In the aftermath, there has been an outpouring of grief and a welcome insistence that justice must be served. That demand carries weight, especially in contexts where accountability is inconsistent and often delayed.
But what is equally revealing, and deeply troubling, is the response from sections of society that still attempt to locate blame in the victim rather than the perpetrator. Remarks about appearance, behaviour, or being “too visible” or “too approachable” expose a persistent cultural reflex: the tendency to rationalise violence against women by scrutinising their conduct rather than condemning the act itself. It is a logic that quietly shifts responsibility away from the offender and places it, however indirectly, on the person who suffered harm. In Sana’s case, as in so many others, this logic is not just unfair; it is corrosive.
There is also a broader structural concern that this case brings into sharp focus: the risks attached to social media prominence. The digital sphere has created new forms of visibility, but it has not always created corresponding protections. Influencers and content creators, many of them very young, often navigate large audiences without adequate awareness of personal safety, privacy risks or the psychological pressures of unwanted attention. There is a growing need for practical education on how to manage exposure, secure digital footprints, and respond to obsessive or intrusive behaviour before it escalates.
At the same time, it would be a mistake to treat this solely as a digital-age problem. The circulation of disturbing footage showing harassment in public spaces, including incidents involving women and children, points to something more fundamental. It suggests a normalisation of boundary violation that extends beyond screens into streets, workplaces and homes. When such behaviour is repeatedly witnessed and insufficiently punished, it begins to lose its shock value, and that desensitisation is dangerous.
There is some relief in the fact that justice has been served in Sana’s case, even if public attention often appears to be the condition that accelerates accountability. That unevenness itself raises questions about how many similar cases never receive the same scrutiny. For her family, no legal outcome can restore what has been lost, but acknowledgement and justice can at least provide a measure of recognition that the loss was neither invisible nor ignored. Sana’s story, ultimately, should not be remembered only as a tragedy, but as a reminder of what remains unresolved: the fragile boundaries between visibility and vulnerability, and the urgent need for a society that protects those who step into public life rather than punishing them for doing so.
(The writer is a law graduate and advocate of the high court in Pakistan, currently based in Saudi Arabia, can be reached at editorial@metro-morning.com)
