Witness To A Crime

May 17, 2003: Zaheera Sheikh first turned hostile in the "fast-track"court in Vadodara. She deposed that she hadn’t seen anything or known anything aboutwhat came to be known as the Best Bakery carnage in which 14 people had beenburnt alive because she was hiding in fear. She did not know anything about themob, she had claimed, or who may have been responsible. She was the key witness, as her sworn statementhad led to the arrest of 21 accused from the Hanuman Tekri area in the firstplace.

June27, 2003: The court in Vadodara acquitted all the 21 accused in the Best Bakerycarnage because there was "lack of evidence".

July7, 2003: Zaheera surfaced in Mumbai with Teesta Setalvad and held apress conference to claim: "What I said in court was false. We were being threatened everyday. I thought we would be killed. And no one came forward to support us. Main bilkul akeli pad gayithi," She specifically blamed BJP MLA Madhu Srivastava and his cousinCongress Councillor Chandrakant Batthoo Srivastava. Also see: her interview

April12, 2004: The Supreme Court transferred the case to Maharashtra inaccordance with Zaheera's request and passed a scathing indictment: "The justice delivery system was being taken for a ride and literally allowed to be abused, misused and mutilated by subterfuge ... The public prosecutor appears to have acted more as a defence counsel than one whose duty was to present the truth before the Court...Government, like modern day'Neros', looked elsewhere when Bakery and innocent children and helpless women were burning."

November3, 2004: Zaheera Sheikh suddenly surfaced in Vadodara with another stunning volte-face. In a hurried press conference in a posh hotel she charged that she and her mother were in fact kidnapped at knife-point and held hostage byTeesta Setalvad. "I was coerced into lying in the interests of the Muslim community," she said.Though details are not known on the falling out between Setalvad and Zaheera, therewere reports that the latter and her family had demanded a house and a bakery in Mumbai, which Setalvadhad balked at. There were many inconsistencies in Zaheera's new allegations, andthe "hostage" charge was easy to disprove. 

December 21, 2004: Zaheera deposed in the Mumbai court saying she had notseen anything on the night of the carnage.

December 22,2004: Tehelka play a tape to a crowded press conference that reportedly shows BJPMLA Madhu Srivastava and his cousin,Congress Councillor Chandrakant Batthoo Srivastava claimingthat "money -- (18 lakhs) -- and intimidation" was usedto turn Zaheera Sheikh hostile in the Vadodara court on May 17, 2003. Predictably, Zaheera Sheikh and Madhu Shrivastava have labelled these charges as a conspiracy to defamethem, but the Tehelka tape does raise some very serious questions.

Obvious questions:

1. IF money and intimidation was indeed the case for her first turninghostile, why did she retract from this position in Mumbai on July 7, 2003 andall her affidavits which led to the SC order? If it was greed in the firstinstance, was it greed again? Were the promises of money made to her notfulfilled? Were other promises or threats made to her? Yes, she has gone onrecord to say. We have no independent corroboration from others.

2.Why did she again retract from this position of July 7, 2003, which wasmaintained till November 3, 2004, when she suddenly showed up in Vadodara? Whatmade her turn hostile again in Mumbai court on December 21? The Tehelka tapesseem to suggest, through Batthoo Srivastava, the Congress Councillor, and NisarBapu, an associate of his cousin, Madhu Srivastava, the BJP MLA, that the Gujaratgovernment might have paid her as much as Rs.35 lakhs this time around. Ofcourse, such hearsay clearly has no legal validity.

Frankly, we do not yet have any independent evidence of what may have beenresponsible for each subsequent about turn -- promises not kept or stakes raisedeven higher or both? -- and of course it needs to be investigated andexamined. The sequence of events and available evidence does seem tosuggest, however, that Zaheera has been used as a pawn, and that lure ofmoney and intimidation was brought upon her to resile from her initialapplication alleging the involvement of the 21 accused, who were let off by herfirst turning hostile.

But we would do well to remember that it is not about one ZaheeraSheikh, not about her unreliability, not that she could be used asa pawn, not that she could be bought or influenced, but about thefact that, as the Supreme Court observed, the state "government, like modern day'Neros', looked elsewhere when Bakery and innocent children and helpless women wereburning".

Zaheera's testimony does not change this fact. That is whatmatters. The concerted mail campaigns notwithstanding.

We all have known about witnesses being bought and sold in the past, aboutchanging testimonies, and the cruel and bizarre dramas enacted in the name of"compensation" or "protection". After all twenty years ofBhopal and 1984 were only recently observed, with no hope of justice insight.

There are many Zaheeras out there. We can condemn them. Or/and pity them.Let's by all means deal with their crimes of collusion and cover-ups, debatetheir greed, their susceptibility and culpability. Needless to say, in additionto adequate protection and compensation for witnesses, we need to realise thatthe real issues are something else, and that we move on and demand strict lawsof perjury and whatever else it takes, but more importantly let's not forgetthose who were killed, and those who haven't got justice -- be it in Delhi orBhopal 1984; Godhra or the rest of Gujarat, 2002.

It's time to remember them all, ask for justice in their name and toensure that the killers and those in cahoots with them are brought to book. Notto do so or to allow this to become a debate about Zaheera Sheikh's charactermakes us at least as culpable as those who are so easy to deride.