Zahira Refuses to Answer Probe

[Guest guest]

Zahira refuses to answer probe panel's questionsPublished: Thursday,

5 May, 2005, 12:14 PM Doha Time

 

AHMEDABAD: Zahira Sheikh, the controversial witness in the 2002 Best

Bakery communal massacre case in Gujarat, yesterday disowned an

affidavit and refused to answer the questions of an inquiry

commission.

 

Continuing to retract statements following a shocking volte face,

Sheikgh acknowledged that the signature on an affidavit filed before

the Nanavati-Shah Commission was hers, but the contents were not.

 

"One Iqbal Ansari made me sign many papers, some blank, some with

English or Gujarati writing. He and others made me sign on papers and

forms promising financial help. After reading the affidavit, I say

that this writing is not mine," she told the commission here.

 

"I don't have anything more to say," she added.

 

When shown the complaint she filed before the Panigate police station

of Vadodara in March 2002, she said the signature in the statement

was indeed hers but the content was not provided by her.

 

"One Mohamed Vora had come to me with this paper, asking me to sign

and I did," she said.

 

While the complaint bears her signature acknowledging that she

received two copies of it, she told the commission that she was not

given any copies.

 

"I signed without reading the content because I was then in the

Sayaji Hospital where both my brothers were being treated for

injuries," she said.

 

In one of the most gruesome cases of communal violence in the state,

Best Bakery, owned by Sheikh's father Habibullah Sheikh, was torched

by a mob on March 1, 2002, on the outskirts of Vadodara, 110km from

here. The attack claimed 14 lives.

 

A fast-track court acquitted all the 21 accused in the case for want

of evidence, as many witnesses retracted their statements. Sheikh and

her mother later alleged before the media they were forced to change

their testimony under pressure from a local legislator belonging to

the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

 

Following her statement, the Supreme Court ordered retrial of the

case outside Gujarat.

 

Sheikh, however, changed her stance yet again in November last year,

when she filed an affidavit before the Vadodara district collector

saying her statement before the fast-track court was not made under

pressure.

 

It was in the context of her changing statements that Mukul Sinha, a

lawyer with a rights group, had petitioned before the Nanavati-Shah

Commission investigating the communal violence that she be cross-

examined on the basis of her affidavit of May 20, 2004, before the

panel.

 

While she failed to appear on four occasions, she appeared before the

commission last month to seek more time.

 

After taking oath yesterday, Sheikh said the affidavit of May 20,

2004, did bear her signature, but the content was not hers.

 

While she did answer a few questions from Sinha related to the bakery

burning incident, she stopped when asked if she did know Teesta

Setalvad, a Mumbai-based rights activist, before the tragedy.

 

She kept answering the next few questions by stating that she did not

want to say anything more.

 

Sinha then said he would submit an application before the

commission "because the witness was not answering truthfully the

questions posed to her".

 

"She has answered at great length similar questions in the Mazagaon

court (in Mumbai, where the retrial was on)," Atul Mistry, her

lawyer, told reporters later.

 

Meanwhile, the commission has sought details of a controversial

correspondence between former president K R Narayanan and then prime

minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on the sectarian clashes.

 

The commission wrote to the president's secretariat seeking copies of

Narayanan's letters to Vajpayee between on February 28 and March 15,

2002, when Gujarat witnessed widespread unrest.

 

This follows the former president's media interview and subsequent

petition from a rights group requesting to call Narayanan and

Vajpayee for cross-examination. – IANS

http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?

cu_no=2&item_no=35516&version=1&template_id=40&parent_id=22