Yahoo News Two Men Arrested for Alleged Gang Rape of 21-Year-Old American Travel TikTokker in Pakistan
Two men are in custody after a 21-year-old American woman with an avid following on TikTok was allegedly gang-raped at a posh resort in Pakistan, according to police.
The woman, whose TikTok account has been splashed across media in Pakistan, told police she traveled to Pakistan three weeks ago to meet Muzmal Sipra and Azan Khosa, two men whose acquaintance she had made via social media, according to the Khan district Deputy Commissioner Anwar Baryar.
Police say the woman had been to Pakistan frequently during the last seven months to work on her TikTok series and several outlets have published her images of herself with the two suspects. On Tuesday, she deleted her TikTok account and disabled her Facebook travel page with the message, “Due to current circumstances I’m temporarily disabling my account. Hopefully I will be back soon. Please know I’m currently safe and all necessary steps are being taken. Stay safe everyone.” The Daily Beast does not name victims of sexual violence.
The alleged rape took place in a tourist resort hotel room in Punjab province after the three had been traveling to create a TikTok video series. “We stayed in a hotel at Fort Monroe where both suspects gang-raped me and also made a video of the act to blackmail me,” the woman told investigators.
Sipra was arrested Sunday at his home some 300 miles from the hotel where the American says she was attacked. Police took Khosa into custody later.
Punjab Chief Minister Hamza Shehbaz said the men would be punished to the full extent of the law if found guilty. “The suspects will be given exemplary punishment according to the law and justice be provided to the victim,” he said.
The State Department told the Associated Press that it could not comment on the specifics of the allegation “out of respect for the privacy of the alleged victim, we cannot comment on the specifics of the allegation.”
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