By Babatune Solanke
A TikTok influencer Mahek Bukhari, 23, jailed for murder of two menstill has an active account on her social media platforms.
Bukhari and her mum Ansreen were found guilty of murder by a jury for the murders of Saqib Hussain and Mohammed Hashim Ijazuddin, who died in a high-speed car chase in February 2022.
The duowere ambushed and rammed him off the road at 100mph after Saqib threatened to expose his and Ansreen’s three-year affair with a sex tape.
Mahek, from Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent, had over 120,000 followers on her TikTok and thousands more on her instagram account, where she posted photos of herself in different outfits. Both appeared to be still online this weekend, despite her conviction.
One of the last videos posted on her TikTok from 2022 features a tribute to her mother. It begins with her gesturing to the camera before transitioning to a picture of them together, as on-screen text reads “to the woman who birthed me, I appreciate you so much.”
In another clip – posted a month before the car chase – Mahek lip-syncs to a piece of dialogue in which a person says: “Babe I killed someone today.”
During the trial , the jury heard how victims Hashim and Saqib, both 21, had travelled from Banbury in Oxfordshire to Leicester to meet Mahek, 23, and Ansreen, 47, where they hoped to receive £3,000 in blackmail cash after Saqib threatened to post nude pictures and sexual videos of Ansreen – who he’d been having a three-year affair with – online.
But instead, Mahek and her mother hatched a plan to ambush them, with Mahek and her two friends pursuing the two men up the A46. Defendant Raees Jamal, 22, behind the wheel of a Seat Leon, rammed into the men’s Skoda Fabia, sending them crashing into the central reservation. The vehicle ‘split in two’ before bursting into flames, killing the two men inside.
Within about eight hours of the crash, Mahek and her mother, Ansreen, were arrested at their home in Staffordshire and later taken to be interviewed by detectives in Leicester. Mahek initially tried to make police believe the victim wanted to kill himself, and told them Saqib Hussain was ‘psychotic’, ‘self-harmed’ and ‘would do anything’.
During the trial, the prosecution asked the social media star if she had been trying to suggest to the police that Saqib had taken his own life by causing the crash, in which he and his friend died. She said yes. When asked why, she said: “Because he is the type. He sent messages where he’s tried to gain attention from my mum to kill himself.”
Then, Mahek said she had not known her mother was having an affair with Saqib in May 2021, despite the fact she was at a party in Banbury with both of them that month when they were seen hugging and kissing “throughout” the event. Mahek insisted she only found out about the affair in December 2021.
After a three-month trial, jurors at Leicester Crown Court last month deliberated for more than 28 hours before returning a verdict finding the TikToker and her mother guilty of two counts of murder, alongside fellow defendants Rekhan Karwan, 29, and Raees Jamal, 23.
Bukhari was sentenced to a minimum of 31 years and eight months in prison at a hearing last Friday, while mum Ansreen was handed a 27-year sentence. TikTok and Instagram have been contacted for comment.
Source: UK Mirror