A long, painful journey; finally a vindication
Teesta Setalvad mirrorfeedback@indiatimes.com
MM
10JUL2012
It's been 10 long years and we've had so many convictions which we did not or could not get after the violence in Mumbai in 1992-93. What we at Citizens for Justice and Peace have been interested in, is the process of ensuring fair trial. The fact that four have been convicted by the Bombay HC on Monday when all were acquitted in Vadodara has justified our stand. (We must also understand that none of the injured bakery workers who became witnesses were even brought forward by the prosecution in Vadodara and the prosecutor functioned in a partisan manner).
The rest is a judicial assessment of evidence.
It has been a long painful journey but a huge vindication for those interested in the struggle against impunity. The issues of witness protection, the independence and integrity of the public prosecutors, delays in trials and independence of the police force were epitomised by this case and what it stood for. More than anything else, this struggle has underlined the crucial need for the higher judiciary to monitor trials in mass crimes.
When false allegations were made in 2004 against us, I approached the SC to order an inquiry into them – not the hostile witness, not the government of Gujarat. The government of Gujarat, strangely gave commando protection to a witness who had turned hostile!
The Registrar General (SC) BM Gupta's report exonerated us of any of the alleged crimes and found Zahira guilty of being induced. A subsequent Income Tax Inquiry into the personal holdings of Madhu Srivastava, ruling party MLA, ordered by the SC found him guilty of giving Rs 18 lakh to unknown sources. It is necessary to recall this painful trajectory today to understand to what extent the Gujarat government will go to impede the struggle for justice. While Zahira served a year's term in jail, Srivastava has gone scot-free
though he disrupted
judicial proceedings
and tampered with
evidence.
The campaign against us was, and is, vicious and motivated by powerful forces who wish to impede our legal aid assistance to the victims of t h e G u j a r a t carnage.
MM
10JUL2012
HC acquits five in Best Bakery riots
The court, however, upheld the life term handed down to four other accused by a trial court
Mumbai Mirror Bureau mirrorfeedback@indiatimes.com
The Bombay High Court on Monday acquitted five accused in the 2002 Best Bakery riots case for want of evidence, but upheld the conviction of four others sentenced to life by a trial court.
A division bench of Justices VM Kanade and PD Kode — who had on July 3 reserved the judgment on the accused's appeals against the trial court ruling — upheld the sentences of Sanjay Thakkar, Bahadur Singh Chauhan, Sanabhai Baria and Dinesh Rajbhar. The judges relied on the statements of four injured witnesses, all of whom worked at Best Bakery in Vadodara, Gujarat. The witnesses had identified the accused and said that they were armed with swords and other weapons.
On March 1, 2002, two days after the Godhra train carnage, a mob attacked the bakery and killed 14 people, mostly Muslims. Seventeen people were named as accused in the case, and a special court in Mumbai convicted nine of them in 2006.
The nine accused had then moved the High Court, challenging the ruling. The division bench commenced day-to-day hearings over their appeals in March this year.
The bench overturned the trial court's order against Rajubhai Baria, Pankaj Goasvi, Jagdish Rajput, Suresh, alias Lalo Devjibhai Vasava, and Shailesh Tadvi, saying there was no evidence against them. The judges said none of the witnesses had "attributed" any role to them during the riots.
In a twist to the case, one of the witnesses, Yasmeen Shaikh, had filed a petition in the court stating that she was "lured and misguided" into giving a false testimony against the 17 accused by activist Teesta Setalvad. She sought her evidence to be recorded again at the stage of appeal.
The court, however, said that it would first hear and decide on the accused's appeals. Teesta then filed an intervening application asking the court to hear her view while deciding the appeals. The court will pronounce its order on the applications filed by Shaikh and Seetalvad later.
THE BEST BAKERY INCIDENT
On March 1, 2002, two days after the Godhra train carnage in Gujarat, a mob of 1,200 attacked Vadodara's Best Bakery and killed 14 people, mostly Muslims. The bakery, run by a Sheikh family, was set ablaze by the rioters. Three Hindu workers employed by the family were among those killed.
WHY THE CASE LANDED IN MUMBAI
The Best Bakery case was moved to a special court in Mumbai for retrial after a court in Gujarat acquitted all 21 accused.
THE TRIAL COURT VERDICT
Of the seventeen people tried by the special court, nine were convicted and handed down life terms in 2006. Judge Abhay Thipsay pronounced the order in a high-security Mazgaon court packed with lawyers, media persons, activists and celebrities.
Judge Thipsay decided against handing out the maximum death penalty. "The prosecution didn't seek it and moreover there was no eyewitness account that detailed the specific role of each accused,'' he had observed.
The star witnesses in the case, Zahira Khan and her family, who turned hostile during the trial, were pulled up by the court.
Judge Thipsay issued perjury notices against Zahira, her mother Seherunissa, sister Sairabanu and brothers Nafitullah and Nasibullah. The family was asked to explain why action should not be taken against them for "giving false evidence".
Teesta Setalvad
'Nirant', Juhu Tara Road,
Juhu, Mumbai - 400 049
http://teestasetalvad.blogspot.com/
www.cjponline.orgwww.gujarat-riots.com
www.sabrang.com
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