The way we’re talking about Humaira Asghar Ali’s death says a lot about us
The body of actor and model Humaira Asghar Ali was discovered in her DHA Karachi apartment earlier this week when police entered to enforce a court-ordered eviction. She appeared to have been dead for some time — the exact timeline will only become clear once the chemical autopsy report is released — but what is clear is that no one sounded the alarm or appeared to have checked up on her. What followed was a wave of public grief, intense speculation, and disturbing opportunism, all tied up with a distinct lack of sensitivity or care.
The police told the media that some members of her family — mainly her father — had refused to claim her body, triggering shock across the entertainment industry. A number of actors — and the Sindh culture department — then publicly offered to take on the responsibility of laying her to rest with dignity. Others posted reflections on loneliness, estrangement, and the price women pay for trying to follow their dreams. But there was also a lot of noise.
Discussions online spiralled into armchair investigations about when she really died, the circumstances of her death, and why she was living alone. The police withholding the cause of death — which is a very normal thing to do as the investigation proceeds — sent people spiralling with conspiracy theories. Disturbing images and videos allegedly showing her body began circulating. News coverage became increasingly ghoulish, churning out stories focusing on details that could not be accurately confirmed without forensic evidence. People came forward saying they suspected for months that Ali had been missing, but did not mention going to the authorities. Some even turned her death into a cautionary tale for women to keep in touch with their family and friends.
The interest in this case is understandable — it’s the death of a public figure shrouded in mystery and in a manner that is the antithesis of the close-knit community life that Pakistan prides itself on. But that doesn’t mean the case and Ali’s life are fair game for the media and public to speculate on. It also doesn’t mean the police need to give minute-by-minute updates on it, providing information that should have been kept private till the investigation was completed.
The interest may be understandable, but that doesn’t mean we need to feed into it.
As actor Osman Khalid Butt put it on X, “I don’t even know what to say anymore. Feels like we’re walking in circles. I get it: engagement is currency. Contrarian opinions aimed to provoke, framing grief and rage for clicks are the new economy. But can we please pause for a second and bring back basic empathy?”
He added, “Empathy when you speak about a woman who died far too young. Empathy when you speak about a newlywed who was brutally raped by her husband. These are real women, not just hashtags, remember that. Their stories deserve dignity.”
The actor urged, “Stop turning people’s real trauma into content. Stop projecting your morality onto someone who’s not here to defend herself. Stop the speculation and the judgment, and the deflection. For God’s sake, just stop.”
Butt’s words reflect what many are feeling — that in the social media-fuelled rush to react, the dignity of the deceased is often compromised. People are quick to post quotes about checking in on others and sharing their grief with poetic flourishes, but fail to truly pause and sit with the discomfort of what it means for someone to die in silence, in the middle of one of the country’s most populated cities, and for no one to notice. They also fail to realise that this was a person, a person with friends and family, a person we don’t know everything about.
Their lives can’t be summed up in a couple of words — though people are keen to pigeonhole them into the neat but uninspired boxes of ‘depressed’ or ‘loner’. They also don’t need to be analysed by people online, have their lives dissected, and have minute details of their lives assumed.
People have been posting lectures online ad nauseam, and actor Zara Tareen urged people to look inward instead of turning tragedies into morality plays.
“Everyone lecturing everybody else on checking on people, colleagues and friends, start with your own families and close ones… Stop the social media quote regurgitating. Go call some people and make amends. This isn’t a moment to look righteous and enlightened.”
And she’s right. The nature of Ali’s death, the delay in its discovery, and the supposed rejection by her family even after death are heartbreaking. But the way these things have been treated in the public eye says a lot about us. It says that somewhere along the way, we’ve normalised mining other people’s trauma for content.
While many responses from the industry may be well-intentioned, they also border on performative. Too often, such reactions centre the griever rather than the one being grieved.
There are heartfelt messages, yes. But there’s also the creeping sense that some are using this moment to appear compassionate rather than to truly reckon with Ali’s death and how tragic it is.
In death, she has stirred the industry’s collective conscience, but whether this leads to meaningful change or simply dissolves into the next cycle of curated (and in some cases, AI-written) grief remains to be seen.
All we know is that Ali deserves more than speculation. She deserves care and respect in both life and death. The least we can do now is to stop turning her into content.