Razia Bhatti

Razia Bhatti was found dead at her home in Lady Margaret Road, Southall. She had been stabbed to death and burnt.

Her husband was tried for her murder but acquitted.

Razia Bhatti married her husband in 1994 at a mosque in Birmingham a short while after becoming widowed. However, it was heard that soon after the marriage she fell in love with a younger man and spurned her husband's amorous advances and he moved out to an address in Gordon Road after her family found him to be overbearing and said that he tried to take over the household.

In the weeks prior to her murder he was seen loitering in the street singing melancholy songs, but when asked why he replied, 'When you are in love you will understand'.

At his trial the court was shown print-outs detailing how he obsessively telephoned Razia Bhatti but when he was asked whether he murdered her he said, 'She was my wife, why would I want to kill her?'.

He said that he still loved her and that they had continued their sexual relationship up until the time of her death and said that there was no motive for him to have murdered her.

The murder weapon was thought to have been a long-bladed instrument, but it was never found.

The husband said that he was at home in Gordon Road at the time of the murder and it was heard that the evidence against him was circumstantial resulting in his acquittal.