A Pakistani court on Saturday sentenced a U.S. citizen and his Pakistani brother-in-law to life imprisonment for the killing of the American’s daughter, a New York teenager whose father told investigators that her “Western” lifestyle had brought shame to his family.
Hira Anwar, 14, an eighth-grade student from Yonkers, N.Y., had been lured to Pakistan and was fatally shot in January 2025 outside her family’s home in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan Province.
Her father, Anwar-ul-Haq, a longtime New York City Uber driver and naturalized U.S. citizen, initially told the Quetta police that unidentified gunmen had opened fire on her. However, a police investigation concluded that the killing was a carefully orchestrated “trap” set by the father, who also went by Anwar-ul-Haq Rajpoot. The two men were convicted of murder committed by individuals acting with a shared criminal intent.
At Public School 16 in Yonkers, Hira was known as an outgoing teenager who posted TikTok videos featuring the singer Zayn Malik and the Australian band Chase Atlantic. Teachers described her as being eager for greater independence and freedom of expression.
A district court in Quetta found that Mr. ul-Haq, viewed her clothing, friendships and online presence as a source of shame. He was particularly troubled by her social media activity and interactions with boys, which he considered inappropriate.
Prosecutors argued that those concerns evolved into a plan to kill her.
According to the court, Mr. ul-Haq persuaded relatives in Pakistan to participate in the plot after bringing Hira there under the pretext of a family vacation.
On the night of the murder, the court found, Mr. ul-Haq “deliberately created the opportunity” for the killing. As he and Hira stood outside the residence, he pretended to have forgotten a cellphone inside and went back into the house, leaving his daughter standing alone in the street.
Within moments, her maternal uncle, Muhammad Tayab, rode up on a motorcycle and shot her in the chest with a pistol, the court found.
Forensic experts matched shell casings recovered at the scene to a pistol found at Mr. Tayab’s home, establishing what the court described as an “unbroken chain of circumstantial evidence.”
Although the judge, Shahid Javed, found the killing to be premeditated, he said prosecutors had failed to establish a “strong motive” linking Hira’s killing to her lifestyle. The absence of a proven motive was among the factors cited by the court in opting for the “lesser punishment” of life sentences rather than the death penalty. The men were also fined about $715 each. The trial lasted about 18 months and included testimony from investigators and relatives.
Naveed Qambrani, a lawyer for Mr. ul-Haq and Mr. Tayab, said the family planned to appeal the verdict in a higher court, arguing that the trial court had come under “outside pressure.”
The case has cast a spotlight on so-called honor killings, a form of gender-based violence in which relatives target women or girls who they believe have disgraced the family through their behavior or personal choices.
Although the practice remains a persistent problem in Pakistan and elsewhere in South Asia, researchers say similar patterns have appeared within some immigrant communities abroad.
“Migration often intensifies these dynamics,” said Afiya S. Zia, a Pakistani scholar and the author of Faith and Feminism in Pakistan, as “some men respond to a loss of social or economic footing, racial standing or social legibility in a new country.”
