Zahira Sheikh

Ahmedabad/Mumbai : The key witness in the Best Bakery case, Zahira Sheikh, on Nov. 3 retracted her statement again and blamed a social activist for pressuring her into implicating innocent people.

Zahira alleged she perceived a threat to her life from activist Teesta Setalvad, who was instrumental in getting the trial of the Best Bakery case, one of the worst massacres during the 2002 sectarian violence in Gujarat, shifted to Mumbai. The killings at the Best Bakery were the one of the worst massacres during the 2002 sectarian violence in Gujarat.

Setalvad dismissed Zahira’s charges as a “pack of lies” but admitted the latest development could have a bearing on the outcome of the trial in the case related to the killing of 14 people in the Best Bakery on the outskirts of Vadodara on March 1, 2002. Nine of the victims were from Zahira’s family. Zahira’s father Habibullah Sheikh owned the bakery.

Zahira on Nov. 3 appeared in the Gujarat town of Vadodara, 68 miles from Ahmedabad, to file an affidavit before district commissioner Bhagyesh Jha stating that she needed police protection as she feared threat from Setalvad.

“Teesta forced me into changing my earlier deposition. She threatened me with dire consequences if I did not follow her instructions,” she told reporters in her hometown Vadodara.

“When I told her (Teesta) that she could not force me into a wrong case and that I would lodge a police complaint against her, her friend Rashid Khan told me that I would be killed if I did not cooperate with them,” Zahira alleged.

“Rashid told me that his men in Vadodara would keep a watch over me, and that I would be lynched if I went there,” she said.

Narrating her first meeting with Setalvad earlier this year, Zahira said: “My brother and I were forcibly taken into a van and driven to Mumbai by an unknown person. There I was produced before a woman who identified herself as Teesta Setalvad. “When I asked her what she wanted, she said, ‘You have to fight for your community, for which even if you have to tell lies, you’ll have to tell lies before court.’”

Zahira said she had requested Setalvad to spare her the false legal case. “When I said I didn’t want to fight for the false case, Teesta told me that she would keep me under her custody until the case was over. “Teesta locked me in her house. Later she put me in the custody of her relatives in Andheri (in Mumbai). She didn’t allow my mother or other relatives to see me,” she alleged.

Zahira said she had warned Setalvad of drastic steps if she was not allowed to return home.

“I told Teesta I would lodge a complaint against her with Vadodara police and expose her, but Teesta replied, ‘We are very rich and influential. You can’t harm us that way.’” When asked how she managed to make her way to Vadodara, she said: “It was during this holy month of Ramadan that I sneaked out of Mumbai.”

Setalvad, who heads the Mumbai-based rights organization Citizens for Justice and Peace, was instrumental in getting the Best Bakery case red. It was following her petition that the Supreme Court ordered a retrial in the case in the Bombay High Court. A fast track court had acquitted all 21 accused of killing 14 people in the Best Bakery on June 27 last year for want of evidence, as a majority of the witnesses had turned hostile. Later, Zahira had told the media that she and her family were coerced into suppressing the truth. It was this statement that led to the exceptional move from the Supreme Court of reng of the case and moving it to another state to guarantee the safety of witnesses.

“I am shocked and pained to hear what Zaheera said about me. I would not like to comment further on this as the case is sub-judice,” Setalvad told reporters in Mumbai. She also said the case in Mumbai was very strong but admitted that Zahira’s latest statement might have some effect on the trial.