Mujahid Arshid has been jailed for at least 40 years for murdering his niece and put her body in a freezer, among other charges. The builder who slashed the throat of 20 year old Celine Dookhran and attempted to murder another woman who has not be named, was found guilty of murder, attempted murder, rape of both women and their kidnap. The Old Bailey also found out that he had sexually assaulted the surviving victim when she was 13.
The ruling came as a relief to the victim's family as the Dookhrans shouted “Yes!” from the public gallery. The survivor wept in court. The trial heard how Arshid kidnapped and tasered his niece and the other woman, bound and gagged them before taking them to a house he was working on in Kingston-upon-Thames, southwest London, in July 2017. He then raped both of them, before slitting Dookhran's throat and dumping her body in a chest-high deep freezer he had installed just two days earlier. Arshid then slashed the other woman's neck but she survived and convinced him not to attack her further.
The victim managed to escape and raise alarm from the hospital. She gave details of the house, and officers soon discovered Dookhran's body in the freezer. Arshid was arrested at a hotel in Folkestone, Kent, the day after he murdered Dookhran. Set Ch Insp Sam Price described his actions as a “sexually motivated attack of unspeakable violence and horror.” She added, “Celine's family have been forced to sit through weeks of reliving their daughter's last hours and they have done this with absolute dignity. Their distress has been compounded by the fact Arshid was someone they knew and trusted.”
Vincent Tappu, labourer from Acton, West London, who also stood trial was acquitted of all charges against him. The trial also heard Arshid talk about “drugging” and raping the victim with and undercover police officer online in 2013, when she was a 17 year old virgin. He posted to the officer, “It's going to be a very memorable Christmas. These type of girls deserve rape. Lol.” He was said to have asked the, “How would you like to f*** a 17-year-old virgin?” While an investigation was carried out at the time, and Arshid was questioned about the posts at the time, no further action was taken after he told officers that he had given a former employee his internet password.
