NEW DELHI, 13 April 2004 — In a landmark judgment, India’s Supreme Court yesterday quashed the acquittal of 21 people accused of murdering 12 in an anti-Muslim pogrom in the western state of Gujarat in 2002.

The court ordered reinvestigation and retrial of the case that has come to be known as the Best Bakery case.

In a rare move, it also ordered the new trial be moved from Gujarat to neighboring Maharashtra state and the state prosecutor changed.

The bench of Justice Doraiswamy Raju and Arijit Pasayat set aside judgments by the trial court and the Gujarat High Court.

The Supreme Court order was in response to appeals by a key witness, Zahira Sheikh — nine of whose relatives were burned alive in the attack — and the Gujarat government. The Best Bakery case has come to symbolize the lack of progress in bringing to account those responsible for the riots in which rights groups say some 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, died. The riots broke out after 59 Hindus were burned to death in an attack on a train.

“This judgment is a victory for justice, secularism and the Indian constitution,” said Mihir Desai, a lawyer for Sheikh, 20, who had asked for a retrial outside Gujarat.

Twenty Hindus and a Muslim were charged with murder after a mob of about 100 people attacked the bakery, owned and run by Sheikh’s family, on March 1, 2002, and killed 12 people inside, including three Hindus.

But the trial court acquitted them in July last year because of lack of evidence.

Sheikh said later she had been repeatedly threatened that if she spoke the truth in court, she and her family would be killed.

“We had locked ourselves on the terrace. The crowd had swords, sticks, petrol cans. My sister, uncle and three of his children who were downstairs were all burned alive,” she told reporters after the acquittal.

“This is a historic judgment. Retrials are very rare in India. And it’s even rarer for a trial to be transferred on the basis of a statement by one witness,” another of her lawyers, Aparna Bhat, said.

Senior Gujarat official K. Nityanandam said the government had yet to receive a copy of the order, but added no appeal was possible and it would have no choice but to implement the ruling.

Teesta Setalvad, editor of the magazine Communalism Combat and an activist helping riot victims, said she hoped the verdict would give fresh hope to survivors.

“This will definitely send out a positive signal to all those involved in the trial of other riot cases,” she said.