Zaheera retracts again, this time it’s Advantage Accused

Legal processes were set in motion and social activist Teesta Setalvad took Zaheera under her wings. Now, Zaheera claims it was Teesta and her associate Rais Khan who had been ‘‘using’’ her.

Surfacing before the media here this afternoon, Zaheera, reading from a paper, alleged that whatever she and her family had said after leaving Vadodara in July last year had been on Teesta’s instructions.

‘‘Ramzan is on and I want to state the truth,’’ she read out. ‘‘What I had said in Vadodara court during the Best Bakery trial was my right statement. The Best Bakery judgment of Vadodara was right.’’

Interestingly, Zaheera addressed the media from a hotel where she is put up with her family; two advocates have also been engaged for her and they were by her side when she spoke.

A copy of Zaheera’s statement has been submitted before District Collector Bhagyesh Jha.

Zaheera claimed that after the fast-track court had acquited the accused, three members of her community barged into her home around midnight and told her she would have to change her statement ‘‘in the interests of the community. We were taken out in a white Tata Sumo and my brother Nafitullah in the Tata Indica of Rais Khan,’’ she said. ‘‘We were taken to Mumbai without our consent and kept for two days at a hotel. There we met Rais Khan who took us to Teesta Setalvad.’’ Then she made some startling allegations. She said that she and her family were held hostage by Setalvad. She claimed she managed to flee only recently when she gave the guard in Mumbai the slip and boarded a bus and a train from Andheri.

Zaheera alleged that Setalvad had held her captive and not allowed her to meet her family. She said she was made to sign legal papers and the matter was taken to the Supreme Court against her wishes.

She said she would lodge a complaint against Setalvad and tell the Mumbai court that her original testimony, which led to the acquittals, should be taken as the truth.

Asked about her earlier statements that BJP MLA Madhu Shrivastava and his brother Chandrakant had intimidated her into turning hostile in the Vadodara court, she said she did not even know them. Ironically, two other witnesses in the Mumbai court have already identified 12 of the accused. Zaheera said she did not know anything about that.

Her focus, repeatedly, was Setalvad. She said the activist had kept her brother Nafitullah away from his wife Kailash alias Hina Vasava and their four-month-old baby. Nafitullah had even had a tiff with Setalvad when he was not allowed to meet his wife, she said. Zaheera’s mother, her brothers and sister-in-law were all put up at the hotel.

Incidentally, it was from the police control room that reporters first learnt that Zaheera and her family were in Vadodara and that they were to hold a press conference.

How and when did Zaheera leave Mumbai and reach Vadodara? Zaheera did not say anything. Her advocates interrupted to say that certain things had to be kept confidential. They also refused to reveal when she had reached Vadodara.

If Zaheera was abducted by Setalvad and her supporters, as she alleged, why did her sister and other family members join her in Mumbai? There were no answers.

Mistry, Zaheera’s new lawyer, said she met him for the first time at 10.30 am today. By 1 p.m. the affidavit had already been given to the collector, police protection provided, and arrangements for a press conference made. After the press conference, police controlled all access to Zaheera and her family—they were kept in a hotel suite, and then taken away to an undisclosed location.