Best: Zaheera’s testimony ends

After deposing for full 19 days, the prosecution in the retrial of the Best Bakery case ended the marathon cross-examination of eyewitness Z...

After deposing for full 19 days, the prosecution in the retrial of the Best Bakery case ended the marathon cross-examination of eyewitness Zaheera Sheikh at the Mazgaon court on Wednesday. Zaheera’s testimony runs into 400 pages.

Her deposition began on December 21 last, when she turned hostile and did not identify any of the accused present in court.

Zaheera had also alleged that activist Teesta Setalvad had ‘used’ and ‘tutored’ her to name innocent persons as accused in the case.

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She claimed that though Setalvad had shown her photographs of the accused to help her identify them, she did not see them.

During her three-week deposition, special public prosecutor Manjula Rao repeatedly questioned Zaheera whether she was paid to lie in court to save the accused. ‘‘I have not been paid and I am telling the truth,’’ was her standard reply.

However, she agreed that a social organisation, the Jan Adhikar Samiti, had paid for her family’s expenses.

She also said she had not filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the Vadodara court order that acquitted all the 21 accused in the carnage.

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