LAHORE (The Thursday Times) — A 19-year-old farm worker has died after a lioness attacked him at a private farmhouse on the outskirts of Lahore, where a TikToker had come to film a video, police said on Thursday. The farmhouse owner and the TikToker have been arrested.
The attack happened on Wednesday at a farmhouse in the Kahna area, according to Lahore police. The worker, identified by police as Talha, was badly injured when the lioness got out of control while the TikToker was at the farm to make a video. He was taken to a private hospital, where he died during treatment.
Police said there had been an attempt to cover up what happened by passing the injuries off as a dog attack. When the suspicious circumstances were examined, the lioness attack came to light, a spokesman for the Lahore police operations wing said.
The lioness has been handed over to the Punjab Wildlife Department, which has started its own legal proceedings. Police said a case was being registered and that they were examining the permit for keeping the animal, the safety arrangements at the farm, and possible negligence. The body was sent for a post-mortem.
“A passion for TikTok cannot be worth more than a human life,” said Faisal Kamran, Lahore’s Deputy Inspector General of Operations. He said no one would be allowed to put lives at risk in the name of hobby or entertainment.
A familiar danger
Keeping lions and other big cats has become a status symbol for some wealthy Pakistanis and social media influencers. In July 2025, a pet lion escaped and attacked a woman and two children in a Lahore street, and authorities confiscated 18 lions kept as pets in the crackdown that followed.
