Celine Dookhran was murdered by her uncle Mujahid Arshid (Picture: Central News)

A ‘psycho’ builder has been jailed for at least 40 years for kidnapping, raping and murdering his niece in south west London.

Mujahid Arshid became obsessed with his 20-year-old niece Celine Dookhran and another woman, who cannot be identified.

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In July last year, he attacked both young women at a house in Kingston, killing Miss Dookhran beofore stuffing her body in a freezer, and seriously injuring the surviving victim, the Old Bailey was told.

The 33-year-old was also convicted of the kidnap, rape and attempted murder of the other woman, as well as sexually assaulting her when she was 13.


Vincent Tappu, a 28-year-old labourer from Acton in west London, was on trial alongside Arshid but was acquitted of all charges against him, and Arshid was acquitted of owning a Taser.

Arshid was said to be fixated with both young women (Picture: Central News)

A freezer inside the home where Arshid murdered Ms Dookhran (Picture: SWNS)

Ms Dookhran’s family, who were in court for the verdict, shouted ‘yes’ when Arshid was convicted after 14 hours of deliberations by the jury.



Meanwhile, the defendant ranted in the dock, saying: ‘The (survivor) killed all of them. She’s lied to you.’

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The woman had earlier wept in court but appealed for others to stay calm and hold back their emotions.

Jurors were told that the surviving woman’s family did not believe that he had sexually abused her, while Ms Dookhran, a Barclays bank worker, told her boyfriend she found Arshid ‘creepy’ and a ‘pervert’.

In the weeks leading up to the killing, Arshid bought a freezer for the Kingston house, which he was renovating, to hide the bodies so they would not be found until long after he had fled the country.

Miss Dookhran had told her boyfriend Arshid was a ‘pervert’ (Picture: PA)

Arshid was renovating the house where he carried out the murders (Picture: SWNS)

He seized his opportunity when Ms Dookhran’s family tried to force her to split up with her boyfriend, leaving her ‘distraught’.

Arshid bound and gagged the woman, bundled them into his pick-up truck and raped them when they got to the house, before slashing Ms Dookhran’s throat.

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The second woman managed to escape by talking Arshid round after he had injured her.

She told police: ‘He said: ‘Now you’ve got 10 minutes to live and your body will shut down.’ I was trying to play dead.

‘He molested Celine’s body while she was dead and then he molested me thinking I was dead. He’s such a psycho.

A court sketch of Vincent Tappu (left) who was acquitted of all charges, and Arshid (Picture: SWNS)

‘I sat up and he said: ‘How have you got so much energy?’ I was covered in blood from head to toe. I was swimming in it.

‘I started saying things he wanted to hear – ‘I love you, we can run away together, we can be happy together, we can have a family’.’

She told the court: ‘I’m not going to lie, I was scared for my life. I thought, if we get out alive, he cannot get away with this.’

Arshid later told his wife Aisha Kalyansingh on WhatsApp that ‘a darkness came over me’ and claimed the surviving woman had planned it with him, but she replied: ‘You’re dead to me.’

In court, he claimed to have had consensual sex with both women, before the second woman killed Miss Dookhran in a fit of jealousy.

But an examination of her body was at odds with his account – a sock was stuffed in her mouth and the knife that cut her throat had also sliced through tape wound around her head.