Having read the court reports now, I think it probably was a genuine relationship. I know it was a hell of an age gap, but she's an attractive woman and he may not have known her age when they met, or perhaps didn't care. Also, now I've caught up, I'm not necessarily convinced Saqib Hussain was even engaged in blackmail - the prosecution states that after the relationship broke down, he asked Ansreen Bukhari to repay the money he'd spent on her when they were together.
Now, I'm not saying that's a nice way to behave when a relationship ends, but it's not exactly blackmail either. It also makes a difference, to my mind, if he'd been keeping a tally of every date they went on and every drink he'd ever bought her, or whether the money was in respect of, say, an expensive piece of jewellery she'd persuaded him to buy her shortly before ending things. In that situation I can see, even if I wouldn't behave that way myself, how a row about money might degenerate into threats that were never really intended to be followed through. In my opinion, that's completely different from coldly setting out to blackmail someone, in the manner of a business transaction. It seems to me that all he was really doing was expressing anger.
Unfortunately, only two people know what really went on in that relationship, and now one of them's dead and can't explain, and the other's in the dock and perhaps not very motivated to tell the truth.
It also seems to me that the point all this got completely out of hand was when the daughter got herself and all these other people involved, in support of her mother, but also out of concern for her own reputation (ironically, I'd never actually heard of her until now). Until then, it was a domestic problem that might never have amounted to anything.
Court updates of murder trial of TikTok star Mahek Bukhari
But we've only heard the prosecution side of the story so far. Nothing is proven, everyone is still innocent as things stand.
JMO
