Biased Bakery

The fate of the Sheikhs is still uncertain8212;Zaheera met the NHRC yesterday but the Gujarat Government is yet to make even a token regret statement. What8217;s clear is that in the Godhra train attack, the prosecution has spared little effort to seek the conviction of the 126 accused.

8216;8216;Even if the trial goes on for years, there will still be convictions,8217;8217; says Godhra investigating officer Noel Parmar. His is no empty boast, it8217;s based on the extra-careful way in which police have handled the case so far.

Consider the following:

8226; In Godhra, the police used Section 164 CrPC to get the depositions of at least six witnesses and accused. Under this, statements were recorded before a judicial magistrate. Such statements are presumed to have been made 8216;8216;truthfully and voluntarily.8217;8217;

So these six will be under pressure to stick by their judicially recorded positions. If any of them retracts during the trial8212;which has just begun8212;they have to explain why.

In sharp contrast, in the Best Bakery case, police did not record a single statement under Section 164, whether of an accused or of a witness. Says lawyer Girish Patel: 8216;8216;If police had used Section 164 during investigation, the judge would have taken a serious view of witnesses turning hostile during trial.8217;8217;

8226; The most obvious evidence of the police8217;s seriousness in the Godhra case is the use of POTA. The burning of Coach S 6 of Sabarmati Express carrying kar sevaks by a mob of Muslims was first booked under POTA then an Ordinance.

Police did not do this while booking riot cases against Hindus. When The Indian Express pointed out this discrimination, the Modi Government withdrew POTA from Godhra case8212;only to bring it back this February.

8226; Because Godhra is under POTA, key witnesses will get the extraordinary protection POTA provides.

8226; Section 30 of POTA empowers the court to record evidence 8216;8216;in-camera8217;8217; and 8216;8216;take measures as it deems fit for keeping identity and address of such witness secret.8217;8217; It can avoid their names and addresses 8216;8216;in its orders or judgment or in any records accessible to public.8217;8217;

Thus, protection of witnesses is built into a POTA case. Little wonder that police refuse to disclose 8216;8216;crucial witnesses8217;8217; on whose testimony they seek to build their case. In the Best Bakery case, local BJP MLA Madhu Shrivastava was a permanent fixture in court when Zaheera and her mother had to testify. They complain of how he and his cousin, a Congress councillor, intimidated them. Had they got POTA protection, these two would have deposed in-camera without fear or favour.

Milind Ghatwai

Vadodara, July 12: She8217;s a mother and she8217;s also an orphan. She8217;s terrified, she8217;s been disowned by friends and family, she8217;s changed her name, she8217;s worried if she8217;s inviting trouble by telling her story. Then she rests her hand on the head of her 17-month-old son to swear that she8217;s 8216;8216;telling you the truth.8217;8217;

8216;8216;No one came to me to ask me what I saw8230;I would have told the police everything,8217;8217; she says.

She8217;s Kailashben Vasava, a witness to the Best Bakery carnage8212;in which 14 people, three of them Hindus, were hacked or burned alive8212;but her story goes far beyond that. It transcends the communal divide8212;and some believe may have even prompted the attack on the bakery.

For, she is a Hindu. She lives with Zaheera Sheikh8217;s brother Nafitullah alias Guddu and from whom she has a baby boy who was born just a fortnight before the massacre.

It was a relationship disapproved of by the Sheikhs, with Nafitullah8217;s mother Sehrunissa disowning him as a 8216;8216;nikamma8217;8217; good-for-nothing. His sister Saahira, who now lives in Ekta Nagar, says their father had even sent Nafitullah to their UP village for six months to end the relationship, but in vain.

Orphaned when young, she ended her first marriage and was staying alone when her affair with Nafitullah 8212; married and with a child 8212; began. Neither the neighbours nor the Sheikh family were in favour of this relationship that led to the birth of a son. They named the boy Chand, ignoring the taunts of neighbours. 8216;8216;I always lived separately, for Zaheera and Sehrunissa never allowed me to enter the bakery,8217;8217; says Kailashben who has given herself a second name, Heena.

She has a one-room house, about 100 metres from the bakery. 8216;8216;I saw everything from my house, how they were made to climb down the ladder,8217;8217; she describes how the mob asked those on the terrace to come down, separated men and women, tied the men8217;s hands, attacked them and 8216;8216;misbehaved8217;8217; with the women. 8216;8216;Sabko berahmi se mar diya, apne teen Hindu ko bhi mar diya,8217;8217; they killed them mercilessly, three Hindus were also killed.

8216;8216;If the police had not arrived, they would have killed the rest also,8217;8217; she says. Her version matches that of Zaheera8217;s. 8216;8216;No one came to me when I was in Dabhoi,8217;8217; she says. 8216;8216;I would have told the police everything.8217;8217;

She describes how men from the neighbourhood ran and hid in the fields when police arrived about 10:30 am on March 2. They later fled to Dabhoi, she said.

8216;8216;The police were busy looking at the bodies when the culprits fled in front of their eyes,8217;8217; she said. She also alleged that people in Hanuman Tekri, where the bakery stood, had whisked her away the day after the massacre so that she wouldn8217;t tell the police anything.

She said Nafitullah had taken a severe blow to his head but survived the mob. Members of the Sheikh family say he lost his 8216;8216;mental balance8217;8217; after the massacre.

8216;8216;Guddu often loses his temper now and threatens to assault people in the neighbourhood,8217;8217; Kailashben says.

Since Sehrunissa and Zaheera8217;s statement that they had lied in court because they were afraid, Guddu hasn8217;t come back to Heena. He8217;s said to be in Mumbai, where the Sheikh family has taken refuge.8216;8216;I am sure he must be with Zaheera and her mother,8217;8217; Kailashbehn said. In the Muslim neighbourhood of Mehboobpura, near Navapura in Vadodara, she is now Heena, concealing her Hindu identity.

She and Nafitullah, who used to work in the bakery but is unemployed now, have been living here for the past one month and a half.

She had lived in her Dabhoi with her sister for a year. Then, asked to fend for herself, she returned to Hanuman Tekri. Three months back, she was driven out of her home: women in the area kept taunting her and said she was responsible for the accused in the massacre case being in jail.

The logic was the Sheikh family was attacked because the elder son had an affair with a Hindu girl. She has nowhere to go. Nafitullah8217;s sister Saahira says: 8216;8216;We won8217;t let her stay with us. If Nafitullah comes back alone we may accept him, but if he comes back with Kailashben, we will turn him away.8217;8217;

Disowned by the Sheikhs and her Hindu neighbours, Kailashbehn is unsure about the future but certain that she has to go back to Hanuman Tekri.