A TikTok influencer, her mother and six friends ambushed and killed her mother’s younger lover and his friend after he threatened to reveal their three-year affair, a court has heard.
Mahek Bukhari, 23, and the others “set a trap” that ended in a car chase and a crash that killed Saqib Hussain and Hashim Ijazuddin, both 21, in February 2022, jurors at Leicester Crown Court heard.
Saqib’s voice was heard in a 999 call to police played to the jury. He said: “There’s guys following me, they’ve got balaclavas on…they’re trying to kill me.
“They’re trying to ram me off the road,” he told the operator, adding at the end of the clip: “Please, I’m begging you, I’m gonna die,” followed by a scream.
Collingwood Thompson KC, for the prosecution, said that the call “explains why the police knew that this was no ordinary traffic accident”, adding that it “revealed a story of love, obsession, extortion and ultimately cold-blooded murder”.
The influencer’s mother Ansreen Bukhari, 45, had been having an affair with Saqib and when she stopped speaking to him he threatened to send her husband naked photos of her, it was said.
The court heard analysis of phone records showed that between 10 August 2021 and 9 February 2022 he contacted her 1,702 times; in turn Ansreen Bukhari, in the same period, contacted him 214 times.
Thompson said that the content “alternated with messages showing anger and frustration she would not return his calls,” said Mr Thompson.
“This, we say, provides the motive for what happened. Because he took to attempting to blackmail Ansreen Bukhari, to persuade her to contact him.”
Saqib, who had “sexually-explicit videos and pictures” of Ansreen, began demanding money and making threats, the jury heard. In one Instagram message read out in court, Saqib told Ansreen: “One click of fingers I can break your marriage and every single thing.”
Ansreen began referring to him as “psycho”, Collingwood Thompson KC, for the prosecution, said. Mahek had told her mother “DW whatever it is we will sort it”, the barrister added.
The prosecutor added that Saqib had estimated that he had spent up to £3,000 on Ansreen over the course of the affair and began demanding the money, threatening to show up at the Bukhari family home in Stoke-on-Trent.
“The crown would infer that Ansreen Bukhari and Mahek, her daughter, thought of a different method of trying to give him the money.”
In messages read to the court, Mahek arranged for Saqib to meet them in Leicester.
He added that in one message, Mahek said “sorted money” and again said to come to Leicester.
“The idea was to lure him into a meeting by promising him his money and then ambushing him,” Thompson told the jury.
Saqib enlisted his school friend Hashim Ijazuddin to take him from his hometown of Banbury, Oxfordshire, to collect the £2,000 that he was owed, the court heard.
Friends discussed whether the meeting was “a setup” but Saqib “laughed off the suggestion”, Thompson added.
Hashim’s decision to drive Saqib “turned out to be a tragic and fatal mistake”, the court heard.
Mahek and Ansreen Bukhari were in an Audi TT with two of their co-accused when it “rendezvoused” with a Seat Leon, he told the court. The other four defendants were in the Seat, he added.
Jurors were shown footage of the two cars arriving at a Tesco car park on the outskirts of Leicester.
At about 1.15am the Skoda Fabia carrying the alleged victims was seen pulling up but left shortly after.
Thompson said that the car park was well lit and there was a chance that, as he said in his 999 call, Saqib had seen people in balaclavas.
Thompson said there were “then a flurry of phone calls” between the groups in the Audi and Seat before the Seat also left the car park.
A chase which ended in the deaths of Saqib and Hashim ensued.
Both Mahek and her mother deny murder and a lesser charge of manslaughter, as do their co-defendants Natasha Akhtar, 22, of Birmingham, Raees Jamal, 22, of Loughborough, Leicestershire, and Rekan Karwan, 28, Mohammed Patel, 20, Sanaf Gulammustafa, 22, and Ammeer Jamal, 27, all from Leicester.
The trial, which is expected to last up to 10 weeks, continues.