Jan
19
Gujarat Updates
January 19, 2005 | Comments Off on Gujarat Updates
In another setback for the Best Bakery trial, the main witness, Zahira Sheikh, has denied signing any application for justice in the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in Delhi.
During her examination at the Mazgaon sessions court, when special public prosecutor Manjula Rao asked her if she had approached NHRC, Zahira said she went to Delhi with social activist Teesta Setalvad,who introduced her to several persons.
Producing the NHRC documents before the court, Rao then asked Zahira to identify her signatures on them.
“The signatures are mine,” replied Zahira. “But it is not correct to say they were made in the presence of NHRC members in Delhi. I signed all the documents in Teesta’s office.” When Rao asked if she had requested Teesta to read the documents, Zahira said, “I had asked her, but she said I was not concerned with it. She asked me to sign them.”
Zahira, however, did say she had gone to the circuit house in Vadodara with Mohammed Vora to meet NHRC delegates while she was staying with Iqbal Ansari.
In the case of the gang rape of Bilkis Bano and massacre of members of her family, a special court in Mumbai is ready to commence a trial. The trial was originally supposed to take place in Gujarat, but the Supreme Court moved it to Maharashtra last August to protect witnesses from possible harm.
On Thursday, the court framed charges against the accused for their complicity in the attack on seventeen Muslims ]on March 3, 2002. The nineteen accused pleaded not guilty to the charges. The prosecution said that between Febrauary 28 and March 3, the accused had planned the attacks.
Twelve of the 20 accused allegedly attacked the victims and gang raped Bilkis Bano, who was six-month pregnant. The attackers also sexually molested Bano’s family members and assaulted them.
Of the 17 attacked, eight died, while six others have been reported missing. Three of them – Bilkis Bano, master Hussain and Sadaam — survived the massacre.
Six police officers are charged with shielding the guilty, while a doctor couple, Arun Kumar and Sangeeta Prasad, are accused of making evidence disappear.
The prosecution also alleged that except the doctor couple, all the other accused had entered into a conspiracy to form unlawful assembly, carry lethal weapons, set houses of Muslims on fire, loot their properties, rape women and kill them.
Bilkis Bano is set to appear before the court on January 27.
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.