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Date: November 3, 2004
A key witness in the Best Bakery
case on Wednesday accused the nongovernmental organisation that was
helping her of "pressurising" her into making statements and naming
"innocent persons" during the ongoing retrial of the case at a special
court in Mumbai.
At a press conference, Zaheera Sheikh
said she had filed an affidavit before the collector of Gujarat's
Vadodara district "seeking protection from Teesta Setlvad and others
of her NGO while testifying in the retrial".
"Zaheera has filed an affidavit
and we are looking into the matter. She has said that her original
testimony before the Fast Track Court in Vadodara was absolutely
true and that Teesta was pressurising her to name innocent persons
as accused during the retrial," Vadodara Police Commissioner S K
Sinha said.
Zaheera said she was "forced into
making false statements by my own people from Vadodara at the behest
of Teesta".
She also denied ever meeting Bharatiya
Janata Party legislator Madhu Shrivastav before the trial in Vadodara.
She had earlier alleged that Shrivastav
had threatened her against stating the truth before the Fast Track
Court.
She also said that the judgment
passed by the FTC Judge H U Mahida was "correct".
The Best Bakery case was the first
post-Godhra riots case to be transferred for retrial to Mumbai by
the Supreme Court.
Zaheera was the key witness in the
case and it was she who had moved the SC for a retrial outside Gujarat.
Following her petition, the SC had
ordered transfer of the case to a Mumbai court and also rapped the
Gujarat government regarding protection to riot witnesses.
