Fans, friends, and the family are aggrieved alike over the untimely death of Rifa Mehnu, popular Malayali vlogger on food and fashion, in Dubai recently.
The 21-year-old, a native of Eenthad village, near Kakkur in Kozhikode district, was found dead at her residence at Al-Jafilia on Tuesday. The Dubai police have reportedly initiated a probe into the incident.
Rifa had been working at a purdah shop in Karama in Dubai. Local sources said that her parents, Ambalapparambil Rashid and Sherina, and two-year-old son Hasan Mehnu, had spoken to her on Monday night too. Less than a day later, what they heard through a relative in Dubai was the news of Rifa’s death. She had left her child with her parents before returning to Dubai a month ago.
She fell in love with Mehnaz, 25, a native of Neeleswaram in Kasaragod district after interacting with him through Instagram. She turned to vlogging after marriage. Local media reported that she was a celebrity in the social media with over 3 lakh followers on Instagram and over one lakh subscribers for her YouTube channel. Her husband too was active on the social media. He has done some music videos as well. Both of them had shared the video on a South Indian restaurant in Dubai some days ago.
Family members are still to come to terms with her loss. They said that she wanted to improve the financial condition of the family and shift her parents who are now staying with a relative.
It was Mehnaz who broke the news of his wife’s death through the social media. He found her dead after he returned from dinner with friends. The body was repatriated for final rites on Thursday.
Her relatives have told the media that they had been informed that her death was due to suicide. They, however, said they were not convinced about it. Meanwhile, some social media posts came in for criticism for the way they described the reasons for her death.
