Woman Shares Haunting Video About Her Divorce Before Ex-Husband Allegedly Murdered Her
The dangers of family pressure.
TikTok A TikToker’s ex-husband allegedly shot and killed her after she posted videos about getting through their divorce.
Police found both Sania Khan, 29, and ex-husband Raheel Ahmed, 36, dead in Khan’s Chicago apartment with gunshot wounds to their heads on Monday.
Officers pronounced Khan dead at the scene, while Ahmed died at a local hospital. The medical examiner’s office ruled Khan’s death a homicide and Ahmed’s a suicide.
Khan and Ahmed broke up in the winter and finalized their divorce in May, friends told the Chicago Sun Times. Ahmed traveled from his home in Georgia with a 9mm Glock to commit the attack.
Sania Khan posted about her divorce on her TikTok before her murder.
Khan, who is of Pakistani descent, spoke about the stigma she faced from her family in the wake of her divorce.
“You think you can hurt me?” Khan wrote in one TikTok. “My family members told me if I left my husband I would let Shaytan win, that I dress like a prostitute and if I move back to my hometown they’ll kill themselves.”
“Going through a divorce as a South Asian Woman feels like you failed at life sometimes,” Khan wrote in another.
“The way the community labels you, the lack of emotional support you receive, and the pressure to stay with someone because ‘what will people say’ is isolating. It makes it harder for women to leave marriages that they shouldn’t have been in, to begin with.”
In addition to posting on TikTok, Khan worked as a professional photographer in Chicago. She focused on photographing couples and weddings.
“I put my heart and soul into every picture I capture,” Khan wrote on her website. “Working with me is choosing someone that lives and breathes creating art but also wants her clients to relive their favorite memories with a smile.”
Khan’s friends shared an outpouring of support in the wake of her death.
A high school friend of Khan who only went by his first name Grant told the Chicago Sun Times that her death “still doesn’t seem real.” Grant said that the two grew closer at the Chattanooga School for the Arts & Sciences thanks to their mutual passion for photography.
“She could make a friend out of anyone and would always be there for them during their moments,” Grant said. “You would be hard pressed to find anyone who would say something bad about Sania because just knowing Sania added so much light to your life.”
Gabriella Bordó, who recently signed a lease with Khan for a home in Chattanooga, told Time Magazine that Khan was “her future.”
“I had at least the next few years, knowing that I wasn’t going to be alone and I was going to have my partner in crime next to me,” Bordó said.
Bordó added that Khan faced pressure from her family to stay in her relationship with Ahmed, despite Bordó seeing his red flags.
“[Khan] was encouraged to stay, pleaded with to stay, by her family and ex-husband’s family,” Bordó said. “I didn’t see someone as spirited as her being so manipulated or controlled by someone but she was.”
Jonathan Alfano is a writer who focuses on news and entertainment topics. Follow him on Twitter to keep up with his content.