Jan
9
Best Bakery retrial deferred due to Zaheera’s absence
January 9, 2005 | Comments Off on Best Bakery retrial deferred due to Zaheera’s absence
Although set to reopen the Thursday after Christmas vacation, the Best Bakery retial did not resume because witness Zaheera Sheikh was absent. After Zaheera’s lawyer said that she was not well, the court deferred her cross-examination to January 10.
If she had appeared, it would have been the first time Zaheera faced the prosecution since the recantation in her last affidavit.
In it, Zaheera disowned her earlier affidavit which had formed the basis for the Supreme Court’s order directing the reopening of the trial outside Gujarat.
The retrial is being conducted in a special court at Mazgaon. Zaheera is the 41st prosecution witness, but she turned hostile and told the court in her deposition that she had not seen any of the accused on the fateful day.
Fourteen persons had been burnt alive on March 1, 2002 when Best Bakery, at the outskirts of Vadodara was set on fire by a rioting mob of approximately 1,500 people during the post-Godhra communal violence in Gujarat.
In the original trial, 37 of the 73 witnesses turned hostile, including Zaheera, her mother, and her two brothers. As a result, all 21 of the accused were acquitted. The Supreme Court, however, decided to retry the case; of the 21 accused, 17 are being retried while four are still at large.
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