NEW DELHI, 23 December 2004 — Giving a new twist to the Best Bakery case that relates to the massacre of 14 Muslims at a bakery in Gujarat, Tehelka, a news portal, yesterday released a print story and a video tape of secretly recorded conversations with some politicians, including Madhu Srivastava, a Hindu nationalist legislator in Gujarat, who said Zaheera Sheikh, the key witness in the case, had pestered him for money to change her testimony and that he eventually paid her.
Zaheera was paid 1.8 million rupees ($38,300) to change her initial testimony, said Tehelka, which means sensation.
Srivastava denied the accusation in a statement to Aaj Tak television and confronted with the bribery charges in court yesterday by the prosecutor, Zaheera was evasive.
Tarun Tejpal , editor of Tehelka, released a video yesterday showing the deal between the two parties. The video showed the aggrieved party seeking 2.5 million rupees. Finally they agreed on 1.8 million.
Speaking at a press conference, Tejpal said: “We wanted to know what was happening in the Best Bakery case. So we sent a reporter with a hidden camera to find out what was happening at the back of this whole affair.” Tejpal told the packed news conference in New Delhi that Zaheera “was paid to change her stance and also threatened”.
“The Gujarat government was willing to pay and Zaheera was willing to take,” said Harinder Baweja, Tehelka’s investigations editor, who also accused the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who was widely criticized for not halting the riots that claimed more than 2,000 lives, of trying to buy Zaheera’s testimony. Zaheera denied reports she took a bribe to change her testimony.
Zaheera was originally a star witness for the prosecution in the case against a mob of Hindus alleged to have methodically burned the Muslims at her family’s Best Bakery in Baroda. But after identifying 21 people allegedly involved in the massacre she changed her key testimony during the first trial last year, which later collapsed.
That led to an order by the Supreme Court to move the case from Gujarat to neighboring Maharashtra state for a retrial because of concerns of witness intimidation.
Zaheera appeared before the court in Bombay, capital of Maharastra, yesterday as a hostile witness and said she was hiding on the top of her house when the neighboring bakery was attacked and could not identify any of the accused.
Zaheera said: “Nobody gives anything to anyone,” she said after being told by the judge to answer the question. “I have sworn by Allah in the court. I will not speak lies. I have to show my face to Him after death. How will I speak lies? I should also be told who has offered me this money.”
The judge promptly adjourned the case till today. Outside the court, she denied the Tehelka allegation of taking a bribe to change her testimony. “I have never taken money and I have never demanded money from anyone,” Zaheera told reporters. “I do not know Madhu Srivastava.”
