A detailed document shows that the police tracked the murderer through the victim’s mobile phone and the convict confessed before the magistrate.
Sana Yousaf was shot dead for rejecting a man’s advances. Photo: Archive
ISLAMABAD:
Details of Umar Hayat’s sentencing for the murder of 17-year-old Sana Yousaf emerged on Wednesday, revealing that he had confessed to a magistrate to killing the teenage TikToker after she refused to meet him, and that police had located him through a contact saved as “Kaká” on the victim’s mobile phone.
An Islamabad Additional Sessions Court on Tuesday sentenced Hayat to death for Sana’s murder. The social media influencer was shot dead inside her house in Sector G-13/1 in June 2025, after she refused to meet the convict. Judge Muhammad Afzal Majoka announced the verdict, convicting Hayat, son of Amjad Javed, a resident of Jaranwala, Faisalabad, on charges of murder, robbery, housebreaking and possession of stolen property.
The court found that the prosecution had presented “overwhelming evidence” against the convicted man and ruled that he did not deserve any leniency.
According to the ruling, on the afternoon of June 2, Sana was at home along with her mother Farzana Yousaf and her aunt Latifa Shah. His father, Yousaf Hassan, had left home to work while his younger brother traveled to Chitral.
At approximately 5:00 p.m., Hayat entered the house armed with a 30-caliber pistol. He went directly to Sana’s room and shot her twice in the chest. After the shooting, he took the victim’s cell phone and fled the scene.
The commotion brought neighbors to the street, and Sana was rushed to KRL hospital in a neighbor’s vehicle, where she was pronounced dead. She was later transferred to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences.
The autopsy recorded two entry wounds and two exit wounds on Sana’s chest and back. The cause of death was determined to be cardiopulmonary arrest resulting from a gunshot wound to the chest, which caused damage to vital organs, specifically the heart and lungs.
Meanwhile, the time between injury and death, according to the autopsy, was approximately two to three minutes.
The post-mortem report concluded that all injuries were ante-mortem in nature and “were sufficient to cause death in the normal course of nature.”
Read: Sana Yousaf murder case: Parents praise court verdict, call for convict to be publicly hanged
The FIR, registered at the Sumbul police station, initially did not name any suspect. Investigating Officer (IO) Fakhar Abbas then started piecing together the identity of the accused through the victim’s mobile phone, which was recovered from his room during a spot check.
Examining the phone, the IO found a contact saved as “Kaka”. It was revealed that the owner of the number had come to Islamabad to try to meet Sana, who had not responded to him. Location data placed the number in Sector G-14 at 9:30 pm on the day of the murder, and the number was registered to Hayat.
The IO, along with a police team, traveled to Jaranwala. When they arrived at Amin Park, they were met on the street by a boy who, when asked his name, identified himself as Hayat. The victim’s lost mobile phone was recovered on the spot and he was formally arrested on June 3.
The court subsequently heard testimony from two independent witnesses who were instrumental in establishing Hayat’s movements on the day of the murder.
Ahmad Khan, who operates a car rental business at G-11 Markaz, Islamabad, testified that around 2:30 pm on June 2, a young man came to his office, introduced himself as Umar Hayat and demanded a vehicle for rent. The detainee was given a black Toyota Fortuner along with the driver Muhammad Wakeel.
Wakeel testified that he drove Hayat toward G-13/1, where he asked Wakeel to stop the vehicle and continued on foot. The convict then returned to the vehicle at approximately 5:15 pm, worried. He directed the driver towards the G-13/1 service road, near the railway bridge, where he stopped the vehicle under the pretext of answering a call and headed towards the bushes.
After returning, he instructed the driver to drop him at Chungi, from where he departed. It was under that same railway bridge that the murder weapon, a 30 caliber pistol, was later recovered at Hayat’s direction.
Read more: Our pain is not justice: the rot that killed Sana Yousaf was never hidden
On June 23, the convicted man expressed his desire to testify before a magistrate. He was produced before the deputy commissioner, recording his confession under section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). In his confession he stated that he was also a TikToker and followed Sana on social media.
He said that he had come from Jaranwala to Islamabad to meet her, but she refused to see him, which caused him great distress. Faced with this rejection, he went to Sana’s house and in the presence of two women, he fired two shots, took Sana’s mobile phone and fled.
Hayat concluded his statement by saying: “I made a very serious mistake by killing Sana Yousaf. I regret my crime, of having killed a young girl who looked like a flower in the most brutal way. My conscience reproaches me for this at all times.”
The convict later retracted this confession, claiming that he had been falsely implicated.
However, the court noted that Hayat had not presented any evidence to show that the confession had been made under coercion and that under Article 91 of the Qanoon-e-Shahadat Order of 1984, a confession recorded in accordance with the law before a magistrate is presumed to be true.
Furthermore, the court concluded that the prosecution had built its case on mutually corroborating pieces of evidence. According to the ruling, the prosecution “presented overwhelming evidence against the defendant.”
Witness accounts were corroborated while fingerprints taken from a mirror inside the victim’s room by the forensic team were matched, through NADRA records, with Hayat’s National Identity Card. Additionally, the firearms report confirmed that the empty shell casings recovered from the scene had been fired from the same .30 caliber handgun recovered tipped from Hayat.
The victim’s mobile phone, recovered from the accused at the time of his arrest, was also identified by his father.
Justice Majoka convicted Hayat under section 302(b) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), ordering death by hanging for Qatl-e-Amd (intentional murder) and ordering compensation of Rs 2,000,000 payable to Sana’s heirs under section 544-A of the CrPC.
Under section 392 of the PPC, relating to the charge related to theft, Hayat was sentenced to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs 200,000. In case of non-payment of the fine, an additional two months of imprisonment will be applied.
Under Article 411 of the PPC, which deals with stolen goods, the convict was sentenced to one year of rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs 100,000, and one month of simple imprisonment in case of non-payment.
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Finally, regarding the charge of trespassing, the court sentenced Hayat under Section 449 of the PPC to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs 200,000 and two more months of imprisonment in case of non-payment.
According to the ruling, all the sentences will be carried out simultaneously, while the death penalty is subject to confirmation by the Islamabad High Court, to which the reference to murder was sent under section 374 of the CrPC. The convicted person has also been informed of his right to appeal within 30 days.
The court observed in the ruling, “The accused, because he did not know his deceased, committed the murder of an innocent girl of about seventeen years old. There is no extenuating circumstance, so the accused does not deserve any leniency.”
