Key prosecution witness in Gujarat massacre trial retracts statements
(AFP)

21 December 2004

BOMBAY - The key witness who earlier implicated 17 Hindus in the killing of Muslims during riots almost three years ago retracted her statement during court testimony Tuesday.

Zaheera Sheikh, 20, was making her first appearance at the Bombay retrial of 17 men whom she earlier implicated in the deaths of the 12 Muslims at a bakery in Gujarat state.

There have been no major convictions over the riots in which, according to Human Rights Watch, Hindu mobs killed as many as 2,000 people. It was among the worst religious violence in India since the country’s independence in 1947.

Asked by prosecutors about a police complaint she had signed, Sheikh replied: “It’s my signature but I do not know the contents of it.”

Sheikh, clad in a black burka, said she had taken refuge on a roof terrace and had not seen anything when the Best Bakery in Baroda city was set ablaze.

“Stones and glass bottles were being thrown at us but because it was dark and foggy and also there was smoke. I couldn’t see who was throwing it,” she told the courtroom, appearing confident and smiling frequently.

The case has seen a series of spectacular flip-flops by the young woman.

She told the Supreme Court earlier this year she was frightened into changing her testimony which implicated the accused at the original trial held in Baroda.

Her backtracking at that time led to the men’s acquittal.

The Supreme Court then ordered the retrial in Bombay, in neighbouring Maharashtra state.

Last month, in another dramatic turnaround, Sheikh said she had been confined in a house by human rights activists who pressured her into making “false statements against innocent people” to the Supreme Court. Rights activists denied the allegations.

Sheikh’s mother, brothers and sister have also recanted testimony.

Despite the retractions, prosecutors say they believe enough people have testified against the accused to secure a conviction.

The riots erupted in early 2002 after a suspected Muslim mob set alight a train and killed 59 Hindus, some of them pilgrims returning from a holy site.

Human rights groups have accused the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party state government in Gujarat of turning a blind eye to the bloodshed.

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