Influencer and mother jailed after followers helped to kill ex-boyfriend

‘Self-obsessed’ daughter encouraged men to jump victim and friend who died after high-speed car chase

TIKTOK fame made an influencer so “utterly self-obsessed” that she helped her mother kill her lover, a judge said yesterday as he sentenced them to life in prison.

Mahek Bukhari, 24, and her mother Ansreen, 46, were jailed for killing Saqib Hussain and his friend Mohammed Hashim Ijazuddin, both 21, in a high-speed car chase in February last year.

Mr Hussain was “lured” to a Tesco car park in Leicester with the promise of money from Ansreen Bukhari, his former girlfriend. Ten minutes later he was dead.

A month earlier, Ansreen, who was already married, had decided to end her three-year affair with Mr Hussain, who was 20 years younger.

Mr Hussain, from Banbury in Oxfordshire, was unable to accept their break-up, and threatened to tell her husband and show him a sex tape.

This prompted Ansreen to plot her revenge with her daughter, culminating in a 100mph crash on the A46 shortly before 1.30am on Feb 11 last year. The car containing Mr Hussain and his friend smashed into the central reservation, hit a tree, split in half and went up in flames.

Sentencing Mahek to a minimum term of 31 years and eight months, and Ansreen to 26 years and nine months for the double murder, Judge Timothy Spencer KC said the TikTok star’s “tawdry fame” as a social media influencer had “made you utterly self-obsessed, with a wholly unjustified sense of entitlement, and no apparent awareness of the impact you have on others, oblivious to the damage you do”.

He said: “The prosecution were right to categorise this case as cold-blooded murder. TikTok and Instagram are at the heart of this case, Mahek Bukhari being a social media influencer.

“That is the reason you, Mahek, dropped out of university. Had you not done so, you would now be a young graduate with your whole life ahead of you. Now, you constrain yourself to prison for all of your best years.

“It was the reason you, Ansreen Bukhari, became your daughter’s chaperone.

“It was the reason your head was turned towards the perceived glamour of promotions, shisha bar openings and the like – a world far removed from the life you lived until then as a mother and housewife.”

He added: “Mahek Bukhari, that your solution to your mother’s problems was to engage some of your male followers to beat up Saqib Hussain – ‘jump him’, as you put it – speaks volumes of your warped values and maybe also of the false world of influencing that you so enthusiastically espoused.”

Rekhan Karwan, 29, and Raees Jamal, 23, were also jailed for life with a minimum of 26 years and 10 months and 31 years respectively for two counts of murder.

Meanwhile, Natasha Akhtar, 23, was jailed for 11 years and eight months; Ameer Jamal, 28, for 14 years and eight months; and Sanaf Gulamustafa, 23, for 14 years and nine months for two counts of manslaughter. Mohammed Patel was cleared of murder and manslaughter.

A three-month trial at Leicester Crown Court heard that Ansreen had threatened to report Mr Hussain to the police when he tried to blackmail her with a sex tape after their break-up in January 2022.

In one message in January last year, Mahek told her mother: “I’ll get him

‘They’re trying to kill me, I’m just getting rammed off the road … please I’m begging you’

jumped by guys and he won’t know what day it is.”

Mr Hussain was lured to the Tesco car park in Hamilton, Leicester, with Ansreen’s promise to pay him back money he had spent on her, but Mr Hussain and his friend and spotted another car full of people, so they drove off.

CCTV footage shows the car being followed, while the defendants exchanged calls with the victims.

Mr Hussain made a panicked 999 call, begging the police to help: “They’re trying to kill me, they’re trying to kill me. I’m just getting rammed off the road… please, I am begging you.”

Mr Hussain was then heard saying “oh my God”, before there was a scream, with the call cutting off abruptly at the sound of an impact. Both men died immediately.

The judge described the 999 call as “one of the most moving and distressing pieces of evidence heard in a criminal court”.

As Mr Hussain and Mr Ijazuddin lay dead in their car, the defendants, sped away before travelling back past the crash scene where the car was ablaze.

In his sentencing, the judge said the chase was a “deadly maelstrom caused by all of you in the dock”.