Author:
Publication: IANS
Date: November 3, 2004
In a dramatic turn of events, the
key witness in the Best Bakery case Zahira Sheikh Wednesday alleged that
she perceived a threat to her life from human rights activist Teesta Setalvad,
who was instrumental in getting the trial shifted to Mumbai from Gujarat.
Zahira appeared in the Gujarat town
of Vadodara, 110 km from here, Wednesday to file an affidavit before district
commissioner Bhagyesh Jha stating that she needed police protection as
she feared a threat from Setalvad.
Jha refused to comment on the startling
turn of events in one of the worst cases of violence of 2002 in which 14
people were torched to death in the ovens of the bakery, owned by Zahira's
father Habibullah Sheikh.
"Teesta forced me into changing
my earlier deposition. She threatened me with dire consequences if I did
not follow her instructions," she told reporters in her hometown Vadodara.
"When I told her (Teesta) that she
could not force me into a wrong case and that I would lodge a police complaint
against her, her friend Rashid Khan told me that I would be killed if I
did not co-operate with them," Zahira alleged.
"Rashid told me that his men in
Vadodara would keep a watch over me, and that I would be lynched if I went
there," she stated.
Narrating her first meeting with
Teesta earlier this year, Zahira said, "My brother and I were forcibly
taken into a van and driven to Mumbai by an unknown person. There I was
produced before a woman who identified herself as Teesta Setalvad."
"When I asked her what she wanted,
she said, 'You have to fight for your community, for which even if you
have to tell lies, you'll have to tell lies before court.'"
Zahira said she had requested Setalvad
to spare her the false legal case.
"When I said I didn't want to fight
for the false case, Teesta told me that she would keep me under her custody
until the case was over.
"Teesta locked me in her house.
Later she put me in the custody of her relatives in Andheri (in Mumbai).
She didn't allow my mother or other relatives to see me," she alleged.
