TikTok influencer Mahek Bukhari and mother Ansreen Bukhari sentenced to life for Leicester double murder

A TikTik influencer and her mother have been handed a life sentence each after being convicted of the murder of two men.

Mahek Buukhari, 24, and Ansreen Bukhari, 46, were found guilty of the murder of Saqib Hussain and Hashim Ijazuddin, both 21, after the pair were killed in a crash in February 2022. It was said that Hussain had threatened to reveal details of a long-running affair with Ansreen when she and her daughter arranged for their car to be rammed off the road near Leicester.

Two other men, Rekan Karwan, 29, and Raees Jamal, 23, were also given a life sentence for murder after being recruited by the mother-daughter pair to drive the pursuing cars. Three others - Natasha Akhtar, 23, Ameer Jamal, 28, and Sanaf Gulamustafa, 23 - were cleared of murder charges but were found guilty on two counts of manslaughter each.

Mahek was a creator on social media platforms TikTok and Instagram and was also known to followers under the name 'Maya'. Before her arrest, she had around 126,000 followers on TikTk and another 43,000 on Instagram and often shared posts about fashion and make-up.

At the sentencing hearing at Leicester Crown Court, Judge Timothy Spencer KC told the court that "love, obsession and extortion" was at the heat of the case, adding that the prosecution was "right in categorising this case as one of cold-blooded murder".

He added: "TikTok and Instagram lie at the heart of this case, you Mahek Bukhari being an influencer on both platforms. That's why you dropped out of university - had you not done so you would have been a graduate with your whole life in front of you."

The judge said that Mahek was "immature below your years", adding: "Your fame through your career as an influencer has made you utterly self-obsessed with a wholly unjust sense of self-entitledness."

Speaking of Ansreen, Judge Timothy Spencer KC scolded the mother by saying "you are the grown-up adult" and that she should have behaved like a responsible adult and parent in the situation. He also said that Ansreen had encountered "so many instances you could have put a stop to this unfolding tragedy", adding: "At every turn you made the wrong choice."

Mahek was handed a life sentence with a minimum term of 31 years abnd eight months. Ansreen was sentenced to a life sentence with a minimum term of 26 years and nine months.