June-July  2003 
Year 9    No.88

Cover Story



‘BEST BAKERY: A Case for Re-trial’

Ending one-and-a-half month’s speculation and silence after she turned hostile in court, Zahira
Habibullah Shaikh and the entire Habibullah family approached the Citizens for Justice and Peace (Mumbai) for legal aid to jointly ask for a re-trial in the BEST Bakery Massacre. In this petition to be filed jointly, the petitioners will also urge the higher court to order the location of the re-trial outside Gujarat as a consistent atmosphere of threat pervades there under the current political dispensation.

The additional sessions judge in Vadodara had, on June 27, 2003 acquitted all the accused in the massacre who had been consistently named by key witness,Zahira Shaikh in her statements before the police, the NHRC and the Concerned Citizens Tribunal—Crimes Against Humanity, 2002. Communalim Combat’s Genocide Gujarat 2002 had carried her testimony garnered in an interview with her on May 21, 2002 at Circuit House, Vadodara.

The BEST Bakery carnage, in which 14 persons were brutally massacred over a period of 12 hours on March 1, 2002, like 18 other brutal incidents in that period in Gujarat, epitomised the abject failure of the state administration and law and order machinery to protect the lives and properties of innocent citizens. Though the NHRC recommended over a year ago that such cases be handed over to the CBI for relatively non-partisan investigation, and citizens approached the Supreme Court making this plea, the apex court is still hearing this matter.

Following her statement before the Mumbai media on July 7, 2003, Zahira Shaikh gave her statement on oath before a full bench of the National Human Rights Commission, New Delhi on July 11, 2003. Reproduced below are excerpts of the statement recorded there:

"I had made a statement before the chairperson, National Human Rights Commission when the NHRC team visited Gujarat soon after the Gujarat riots. It was probably on 21 March, 2002. I have also made statements before the police and certain other agencies. I made a statement in the court also. I made a request to appear before the Commission and the Commission has granted my request. I wish to make a statement and I am doing so voluntarily…

"When my sister, Saira received summons for appearance in the court she asked me who our lawyer was. I told her that I do not know the name of the lawyer. Ever since she received the summons we also started receiving threats. One gentleman by the name of Lal Mohammad, who also had his business opposite the Best Bakery which had also been burnt and who had also come to live in Ekta Nagar where we were living. He came to our house even before the summons were received on many occasions and kept threatening us not to depose in the court against the accused.

"He was saying that you should resile from your earlier statement or otherwise even the four of my surviving family members would be killed. He repeated these threats every time he came to the house but we did not believe in what he was saying…. (Thereafter, after receiving the summons we started receiving threats on the phone) …that unless we resile from our statement, those who are surviving would also be killed…

"My brother got afraid after receiving all these threats. My brother Nafitullah told me that I care for my life and because of these threats now, I will not depose in the court… My sister, Saira and brother, Nafitullah appeared in the court on 7 May, 2003. After they came back from the court they told me that in the court, people belonging to the accused group and their supporters were there in the court. My brother told me that even the counsel representing the State was taking the side of the accused and other counsel also were only supporting the accused. He also said that the police was supporting the accused. He, therefore, advised me to resile from my statement…

"Four days before 17 May, 2003 I received summons for my appearance in the court. The appearance in the court was fixed for 17 May, 2003… After I received summons I also started receiving threats. The threats were also received on the phone of my brother. He was told that he should advise me that if I resile from my statement it could save the life of the family and if I do not do so the rest of the family members may also be killed. I told him that I do not have any faith in these political people and that I shall go to the court and make my statement.

"I was waiting for a Human Rights Group or Relief Committee people to come to my house to take me to the court and give legal assistance but nobody turned up… (No help came) I had requested the Relief Committee and other social worker groups to engage a lawyer for me as I did not have trust in the State Counsel… On the date when I had appeared in the court I expected that some fellow Muslim would come to take me from my house to the court but nobody turned up.

"At 11.00 am I had to appear in the court along with my mother and younger brother, Naseebullah and we went to the court in a rickshaw. When I reached the court premises, then in the room on the ground floor of the court complex I met Chandrakant Bhattoo. He told me that I should again think about it whether I wanted to give evidence in their favour or stick to my earlier statement. He threatened that in case I stuck to the earlier statement the remaining four members of my family would be killed. But in case I resile from it then they would spare all members of my family. He advised me that in the court when I appear as a witness, I should reply in the negative to every question and only state that there was a mob of about 15,000 people and lot of smoke was coming because of the property burning and I could not identify anybody. He told me that all the 12 defence counsel, the police, the judge and the state counsel had all been bought by them.

"When my name was called, I went into the witness box. I was administered oath by the judge. The counsel asked me if I knew who was the state counsel. I told him that I do not know. He actually was the state counsel himself. He told me that his name was Raghuvir Pandya and that he was the state counsel and was fighting the case on my behalf. When I was in the witness box, I noted that in the court room members of the Bajrang Dal and residents of Hanuman Tekri, who were participants in the burning and killing of our people, were present. They were all staring at me. There was one another person who had menacing looks. I did not know his name and did not know who he was. There was no Muslim person in the court room. People only from Hanuman Tekri were there and the man with menacing looks was giving me dirty looks.

"At that time, two thoughts crossed my mind whether I should get the accused, who had committed crime, punished or save my surviving family members. I decided in favour of my family members. When the state counsel asked me as to where I was on 1 March, 2002, I told him that I was observing roza and was present at the terrace of our house. The he asked me if I saw the mob and how big the mob was. I replied that the mob was of about 15,000 strong people. Then he asked me if my sister, Sabira was also burnt alive and I replied in positive. He asked me if I had gone to the police station and made a statement and if so, how many times I made statements before the police. I told him that I had been to the Police Station once because there was a statement which was signed by me. I said so, even though Bhattoo had told me to reply every question in the negative. Actually, I was taken to the police station about 5 to 10 times to identify the accused. Actually, the accused had not been arrested for about a month…

"The state counsel asked me 3-4 times if I could identify the accused whom I had named in the statement. I said no because I was under pressure. After the state counsel finished taking the statement from me the defence counsel, Shri Pravin Thakkar asked me that why I had signed in Gujarati on the statement which had been recorded in the first point of time at the Sayaji Hospital. I told him that I had signed in Gujarati because I know both Hindi and Gujarati… My brother told me later on that he had been promised that if I would resile from my statement, then they would sell the property of the Bakery and the house which had been burned and give him the proceeds. He had told my brother that since the persons of both the communities, Hindus and Muslims, had been burnt in that property nobody would buy that property unless he intervened to sell it.

"I, thereafter, went to my house and three days later left for the village. While leaving for the village even my conscience was bothering me as to why I had saved those who had killed my family members. I was not even able to take my meals properly. I regretted having resiled from my statement and cursed myself for saving the criminals. It was for this reason that I told my mother that I want to get away from here and I went to the village in UP. I went there with my sister-in-law. I stayed there for about 1½ months. Everybody there was accusing me of having taken money to resile from my statement. They said that I should have got the accused punished instead. I told them that I resiled from my statement under pressure. Everybody was telling me that I had done something wrong and that I should have got the accused punished.

"I, therefore, did not like to continue to stay in the village. I then wanted to come back to Baroda. I had a desire to make clean breast of the whole thing before the media and I thought of the group from Mumbai who I had met earlier also. I had met them in the circuit house as well as in the Bawahir Hall in Baroda. I learnt that they were fighting a number of cases and were also getting justice rendered to the people, I decided to approach them. I wanted the case to be reopened… I want the case to be reopened so that the criminals can be punished. I have full faith in the group from Bombay (Citizens for Justice and Peace) and I am confident that they would get me justice. I do not want this case after being reopened to be tried in Gujarat. It should be tried outside Gujarat. I would be very grateful if the Commission can also help me in this behalf.

"The statement was read over to Shaikh Zahira Bibi Habeebullah and explained to her in the presence of Teesta Setalvad, Citizens for Justice and Peace, which she had admitted to be correct."

Unanswered Questions

Ø From the time that the case was committed to sessions until the summons were issued to eye witnesses, the public prosecutor, Raghuvir Pandya, did not have any briefing/sitting with them.

Ø From May 7, 2003 with the testimonies of Saira Shaikh and Nafitullah Shaikh being recorded, these star witnesses (eye-witnesses) had begun to turn hostile. There was nothing that the public prosecutor (PP) did to raise the issue of the security of the witnesses in an attempt to find out the reasons for this change.

Ø When in fact the witnesses did turn hostile in court, the PP made no efforts whatsoever to place before the court the report of the NHRC, of the Concerned Citizens Tribunal—Crimes Against Humanity, numerous media reports, and television video-taped testimonies where the eye witnesses had deposed clearly about what and whom they saw. In short, the PP did nothing to gather the real truth from the witnesses even though they were contradicting previous statements in court.

Ø The PP also did not confront them with their statements before the police wherein they had also named the accused.

Ø Even after the first witness turned hostile, no adjournment was sought by the PP, to attempt to meet the witnesses and clarify the case of the prosecution.

Ø Though Zahira Shaikh’s testimony was recorded first between 11 am and 2 pm on March 1, 2002 at the Sayaji Hospital where she named some of the accused, the court accepted the defence’s argument that only the statement of one Raiskhan Pathan recorded at 11.50 am on March 1, 2002 be treated as an FIR. This despite the fact that the version that Zahira Shaikh gave in her first statement at Hanuman Tekri, then at Sayaji Hospital on March 1, 2002, then again on March 4, 2002 and repeatedly thereafter was corroborated before several agencies right up to February 2003-- the same Zahira Sheikh gave incriminating evidence before the NHRC during March 2002, and before the Concerned Citizens’ Tribunal headed by eminent retired judges during May 2002.


[ Subscribe | Contact Us | Archives | Khoj | Aman ]
[ Letter to editor  ]

Copyrights © 2002, Sabrang Communications & Publishing Pvt. Ltd.