AHMEDABAD: Twelve years after the sensational murder , Juhapura’s Farheen , alias Shaheen Pathan, has been acquitted by Gujarat high court in the case of her boyfriend’s murder . The boyfriend was allegedly killed after he declined the proposal for marriage. She was caught with the dead body of her boyfriend in an auto-rickshaw allegedly while on way to dump it in the Sabarmati river.

In 2011, the woman was convicted of murder by a trial court which had sentenced her to life imprisonment. The high court, however, has reversed the conviction order and exonerated her of all charges.

There were seven other youths who were accused and arrested in the case but the trial court had acquitted them all by granting them the benefit of doubt.

On basis of the chargesheet and testimony of 58 witnesses and a lot of documentary evidence, Farheen was convicted of the murder that took place in 2006.

Farheen is a widow who used to live in Juhapura. She fell in love with Devang Joshi, a youth from Hatkeshwar who was a kerosene seller. The two began a serious relationship and lived together in Juhapura for five years.

According to police papers, the couple fell apart after Farheen, who had two sons from her earlier marriage, had to abort their love child. She asked Devang to marry her but the latter rejected her proposal and revealed his intention to marry a girl of his community.

This disclosure alleged shocked and enraged the widow. On the night of May 7, 2006 she called him to her house where her brother, Azam Pathan, and six of his friends had gathered.

Farheen stabbed Devang to death and then chopped his body into pieces.

She put the pieces in a bag, and hired an auto with the intention of throwing the body pieces in the Sabarmati river. Her plan failed when police on a routine patrol, flagged the auto down at a flower market near Sardar bridge and discovered the body pieces. The police had mentioned this in the chargesheet but the high court rejected the police conclusion.

