After four years of trials and retrials, the law of the land finally caught up with the guilty in the Best Bakery case, which killed 14 people including two children.
Eleven of those dead belonged to one family - that of Zaheera Sheikh. Zaheera later became the key witness in the trial and has been at the centre of media attention due to her continuous flip-flops.
SHEIKH-Y PAST |
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The defence had argued that only the FIR of March 1, 2002 (of one Raizkhan Amin Mohammed Pathan) is admissible in the Best Bakery case, while the FIR of March 4, 2002 (of the “star witness” Zaheera Sheikh) was manipulated by the police. |
 April 2002: The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in its report of April 2002 had recommended that the case be handed over to the CBI. |
| May 19, 2003: Zaheera, her mother Sehrunissa and her brothers Nafitullah and Nabiullah retracted their statements in court. Zaheera said that she was on the terrace while the incident took place and couldn’t identify the accused. |
| June 27, 2003: All the 21 accused in the Best Bakery carnage were acquitted by a local court for lack of evidence. Additional Sessions Judge H U Mahida feared the police may have implicated innocents. |
| This was the first verdict in a case relating to the post-Godhra communal violence. The judgement accepts the argument without even considering the fact that statements similar in import to the March 4th FIR were made by witnesses before several agencies and/or organizations well after March 4, 2002, and affirmed, according to media reports, as recently as February 2003. |
| The trial in the case began on May 9, 2003 in a fast track court. Delivering his 24-page judgment, Mahida said, "It was proved beyond doubt that a violent mob had attacked the bakery and killed 12 persons. However, there was no legally acceptable evidence to prove that any of the accused presented before the court had committed the crime." Nobody from the complainants' side was present in the court premises when the judgment was pronounced. |
| July 5, 2003: Zaheera along with her mother told The Sunday Express that she lied in court because she feared for her life. |
| July 7, 2003: Zaheera said that Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) MLA Madhu Srivastava and his cousin, Congress councilor Chandrakant Srivastava were behind the threats and sought re-trail outside Gujarat. |
| July 8, 2003: National Human Rights Commission visited Vadodra to check papers in the Best Bakery case. |
| July 31, 2003: NHRC moves Special Leave Petition in Supreme Court asking for a retrial outside Gujarat. |
| April 12, 2004: Supreme Court orders the retrial to be held outside Gujarat in Maharashtra. The orders were passed by Justice Aoraiswamy Rajin and Justice Arijit Pasayat. |
| September 24, 2004: Charges were framed by Judge Abhay Thipsay. |
| October 4, 2004: The re-trial begins. Following the examination of formal prosecution witnesses in the first weeks, independent eyewitnesses to the Best Bakery massacre had begun testifying on October 27, 2004. |
| Among these were Tufel Ahmed, Raees Khan Pathan and Shehzad Khan, all workers in the Best Bakery who were eyewitnesses to the night-long attack. |
| November 3, 2004: In an affidavit to the High Court, “If we don’t lie as instructed by Teesta, then these people will get me and my family members killed,” Zaheera said with regard to Teesta Setalvad. |
| She said that after the fast track court had acquitted the 21 accused, two Muslims had barged into her house and told her that she would have to change her statement in the interest of the community and thereafter she along with brother were taken to Mumbai to Teesta Setalvad. |
| She however did not divulge the exact date when she was able to flee from Mumbai but said that Teesta has had her held captive and it was she who had made her sign legal papers and the matter was taken to Supreme Court against her wishes. |
| Since November 9, 2004: Zaheera went into hiding and even skipped the November 17, 2004 hearing at Mumbai court despite summons being issued to her and her brothers. The silver lining however has come in the form of Zaheera’s cousin-Yasmin Sheikh who appeared as a witness on the same date and identified 11 of the 21 accused in the Best Bakery case. |
| November 29, 2004: Zaheera Sheikh, prime witness in the Best Bakery case, appeared before the trial court in Mumbai amidst tight police security to give her testimony but did not depose as the prosecution chose not to examine her. |
| Prosecutor Manjula Rao told the designated Judge Abhay Thipsay that she would examine Zaheera at the end of the trial and not at this stage. Thereafter, Zaheera left with her police escort and her lawyer Harshad Ponda assured that she would depose as and when the court summoned her. |
| Nov 18,2004: Zaheera’s brother Nasibullah Sheikh appeared in court only to retract his earlier statement. He confirmed to the designated judge Abhay Thipsay that someone had hit him in the head, and he had gone unconscious. And by the time he could regain his senses the bakery had been burnt and so he does not recognise the accused. Something which he had once refuted. |
| Jun 17, 2005: The cross-examination of investigating officer P P Kanani. Mr. Kanani, who took over as investigating officer from Himmatsinh Baria of Panigate Police Station on March 10, 2002, gave details of the case in a chronological order. |
| August 29, 2005: A Supreme Court appointed Committee indicted Zaheera Sheikh, key witness in the Best Bakery case, as a “liar”. The Committee did not mince any words in criticizing Zaheera, who has given a series of flip-flop statements. |
| The Committee, headed by the Supreme Court Registrar General said in its report, “She has developed an image of self-condemned liar whose statements alone cannot safely be accepted.” |
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