LONDON: TikTok influencer Mahek Bukhari and her mother Ansareen Bukhari were sentenced to life in prison by a UK court over the double murder of two men in a deliberate fatal crash in Leicestershire.

Ms Mahek, 24, was sentenced to life with a minimum prison term of 31 years and eight months. Her mother Ms Ansareen was jailed for life and given a minimum term of 26 years and nine months.

The crash unfolded last year near Leicester, killing Saqib Hussain and Hashim Ijazuddin, both 21.

Inquiries showed Mr Hussain had been in a relationship with Ms Ansareen for three years. After Ansareen Bukhari tried to end the affair, Mr Hussain made threats to expose the relationship to her husband and share her videos. Ms Ansreen offered to pay back money which Mr Hussain had spent during the relationship and it was arranged for Mr Hussain to meet with Ms Ansreen and her daughter.

Judge says prosecution was right in categorising the matter as a ‘cold-blooded murder’

Ms Ansareen and Mahek Bukhari arrived at the arranged meet-up in a Tesco car park in Hamilton, Leicester, along with six other people. Mr Hussain then arrived at the car park in his car which was being driven by his friend Mr Ijazuddin. The impact of the collision caused Mr Hussain’s car to split into two and its engine to detach from the body. Police said both victims died immediately from multiple injuries, prior to a fire taking hold.

Inspector Mark Parish said: “This was a callous and cold-blooded attack which ultimately cost two men their lives.”

Judge Timothy Spencer KC said: “The prosecution categorised this as a story of love, obsession and extortion and they are right. They were also right in categorising this case as one of cold-blooded murder.”

“Your tawdry fame through your career as an influencer has made you entirely self-obsessed,” the judge told Ms Mahek.

He said her “warped values” had led to her having “no apparent awareness” of the impact her actions had on others.

Ms Mahek blew a kiss to her father, who was present in court, as she was taken from the dock to start her jail sentence.

To Ms Ansareen, the judge said her head had been turned by the “perceived glamour” of her daughter’s career, with her often appearing in posts online and attending promotions and shisha bar openings. He told her: “You are the grown-up in this group and you should have behaved as the grown-up but you allowed your understandable concern about exposure to strip you of any rational judgement.”

The judge cited two key WhatsApp messages from Ms Mahek. One said: “I’ll soon get him jumped by guys and he won’t know what day it is... I’ll make sure he gets jumped, he won’t know who did it and how.”

Earlier that day, the court heard statements from the victims’ families. Sikandar Hayat, the father of Mr Ijazuddin, said his son had been “innocent”.

He said he could not understand why the defendants did not call emergency services after the crash. “They left him and his friend to burn in a furnace of hell,” he said.

In a separate statement read on behalf of Mr Hussain’s family, the court heard that they had become “two lifeless corpses”, unable to eat or drink in the run-up to their son’s funeral.

Published in Dawn, September 3rd, 2023