Sialkot police arrest TikToker Mr Patlu over threats to stampede victim's family

SIALKOT: Police have arrested TikTok host Ansar Mahmood, known as Mr Patlu, in a case accusing him and his brother of threatening the family of a man killed in a stampede at his mehndi ceremony to force a reconciliation.

A police spokesman, Khurram Shehzad, confirmed the arrest on Monday and said the accused would be produced in a local court on 10 November.

The case rests on a first information report registered on 9 November at Sadar Daskha police station on the complaint of the brother-in-law of Muhammad Rehan, 31, who died in the crush at the ceremony held at Fraz Ground.

The complainant told police that four unidentified armed men came to his house, pressed the family to settle the matter, threatened them and demanded that they record statements in favour of the accused. He said the men also showed pistols.

The FIR names Mr Patlu, his brother Muhammad Kashif and four unidentified men, and cites sections 348, 506-B, 149 and 109 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

The stampede case was registered at Motra police station. Mr Patlu holds interim bail from the Daska sessions court until 10 November, and earlier obtained protective bail from the Islamabad High Court, which heard his petition before Chief Justice Sarfraz Dogar and barred police from arresting him until that date.

According to the police FIR on the stampede, Mr Patlu had advertised on social media that Rs20 million in cash would be given away, along with a car, 50 motorcycles, mobile phones and other gifts. Crowds came from Gujranwala, Gujarat, Wazirabad, Mandi Bahauddin and Narowal. Two people were killed and 17 injured in the crush.

The district administration said an NOC had been issued for a private function inside boundary walls on Daskha Road with a start time after Isha prayers, and was cancelled before the event began after reports that organisers had started preparations around 4pm in breach of its terms. Police said the organisers broke the permit conditions and security SOPs.

Qasim Nawaz Abbasi, the accused's lawyer, told reporters his client had obtained the NOC and that keeping order was the district administration's responsibility. He said Mr Patlu was in hospital for treatment when the stampede happened, and that his client feared being shot in a police encounter. Sialkot police did not comment on those claims, BBC Urdu reported.

Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, who belongs to Sialkot, wrote on X that the TikToker was using his influence to make the law ineffective, and that the event had been staged to increase his earnings at the expense of poor people from the area.

In a video message after the stampede, Mr Patlu called it an accident and asked Maryam Nawaz and Field Marshal Asim Munir not to lay the blame on him. "I was not even there," he said.