A teenager who helped an influencer share his feline exploits was mauled to death by a tiger on a private breeding farm in Pakistan last week, police said.
The victim, identified only as Talha, was an employee of the Lahore farm and had helped Noman Hassan during a video shoot on Wednesday, according to the Times of India.
Hassan, who has millions of followers on TikTok and Instagram, where he posts clips of himself playing with dangerous animals, allegedly asked Talha to take the female animal out of her enclosure when he mauled the 19-year-old, according to a criminal complaint.
The influencer took Talha to the hospital, where he tried to convince doctors that the teen had actually been the victim of a dog attack, police said.
There was some confusion over whether the animal involved was a tiger or a lion. The Lahore police described the incident as a “lioness attack” on X, but included a photo of a tiger.
Hassan and the farm owner, identified as Fayyaz, were arrested in connection with the fatal mutilation, the media reported.
“A passion for TikTok cannot be more important than a human life,” a Lahore police spokesperson was quoted as saying.
“No one can be allowed to put human life at risk in the name of a hobby or entertainment. Attempts to cover up the facts and all aspects of negligence will be investigated.”
Owning lions, cheetahs, tigers, pumas and jaguars is legal in Pakistan provided the animals are registered and kept outside city limits, the report said.
Police were investigating whether safety protocols and legal requirements had been followed by the private farm, and authorities had been cracking down on people keeping lions and tigers as pets after a fleeing lion attacked a mother and her two children on the streets of Lahore last year.
The fatal incident came a month after a former child actor was killed by a tiger at a British wildlife park while climbing into the animal’s enclosure.
An Indian cattle herder survived a filmed mauling by a lioness over the summer after he began petting her like a house cat.
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