Pakistan teen dies in TikTok fake suicide stunt gone wrong

PESHAWAR — A young Pakistani was killed as he pretended to shoot himself while being filmed by friends for a TikTok video, police said Thursday (May 20).

Hamidullah, 19, who police said was well-known locally on social media, held a friend's pistol to his temple and pulled the trigger, unaware the gun was loaded.

"The young man died on spot," said Mr Badshah Hazrat, a senior police official in the northwestern Swat Valley.

While the clip of the incident was not uploaded to TikTok, police said friends circulated it among themselves and it soon spread further afield.

"The young man was locally famous and active on TikTok," Mr Hazrat told AFP.

The 19-year-old had more than 8,000 followers and posted nearly 600 TikTok clips.  

Most were of him playing pranks with friends, cricket, or featured life in the rugged and picturesque valley.

The death was just the latest incident of a social media stunt gone wrong in Pakistan. 

A security guard was killed in Karachi last year while toying with his rifle as he filmed a TikTok clip, while in January another teenager died after being struck by a train while filming for the app in Rawalpindi. AFP