Author: Times News Network
Publication: The Times of India
Date: July 22, 2003
Zahira Shaikh's disgruntled sister-in-law
Yasmin Banu Shaikh has joined the long list of eyewitnesses of the Best
Bakery carnage who have come out in the open and said they would like to
tell the court "the real truth".
Yasmin is the 20-year-old estranged
wife of Zahira's brother Nafitullah and was present at the bakery when
the carnage occurred. She alleges that both Zahira and her mother
Shehrunissa are lying. According to her, 21 persons, who were accused
and later acquitted by the fast track court of judge H.U. Mahida, were
never part of the mob.
"I have come out in tile open now
because I want to save Chandrakant Bhattu (municipal councillor) and Madhu
Shrivastav (BJP MLA) as they had saved us when the mob attacked the bakery,"
she told TNN on phone from Chotta Udepur where she now lives. "Both
Zahira and my mother-in-law are trying to falsely implicate Bhattu and
Shrivastav and put them in trouble."
She claims Zahira and Sheherunissa
forced her to leave for Chhota Udepur with her uncle when he came to visit
her in the SSG Hospital. "They were afraid that I would speak the
truth. So, they sent me away I now live with my mother and two-year-old
daughter Tanvir Banu and survive by working as a domestic."
Incidentally, Nafitullah is believed
to have an illegitimate relationship with a Hindu woman from Hanuman Tekri,
Kailas Vasava, who has changed her name to Heena. They also have
a child from this relationship. Yasmin also accepts that ,be has
known Bhattu, who used to regularly frequent the area before the carnage,
but she has never met Madhu Shrivastav.