Gulf News, May 4, 2011
World | India
Activist decries attempts to malign her
Hostile witness files another affidavit claiming her deposition before the trial court was 'false' and 'tutored'
By Pamela Raghunath, Correspondent
Mumbai: Human rights activist Teesta Setalvad, who has been fighting to get justice for the victims of the 2002 Gujarat riots, said there has been a systematic attempt to malign her efforts for the last nine years.
She and her organisation, Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), denied the allegations made by Yasmeen Shaikh, a witness in Vadodara's Best Bakery case that concluded in 2006, that the activist had "lured" and "coerced" her into testifying against the accused.
Shaikh filed a fresh affidavit on April 21 in the Bombay High Court that her deposition before the trial court was "false" and "tutored."
Shaikh told the court that since convictions were based on her deposition, she should be called for examination again. Nine of the 17 accused were sentenced to life imprisonment by a court here after the case was transferred to Mumbai from Gujarat. Shaikh filed the petition in April after no action was taken on her letter of June 17, 2010.
Exonerated
Responding to Shaikh's petition, Setalvad asserted that the CJP "has always functioned within the law, assisting victims to access justice and punish powerful perpetrators in a system that is loaded heavily in favour of the accused".
During the hearing, Zahira Shaikh, the prime witness in this case, had turned hostile for the second time. And it was Setalvad who asked for an apex court's inquiry into the allegations.
"The Registrar General of the Supreme Court of India's report of July 29, 2005, exonerated us completely," said Setalvad.
Giving excerpts from the trial court judgment of February 2, 2006, in the Best Bakery re-trial, the CJP stated that the affidavit of Shaikh is nothing short of a sustained attack on their credibility.
The trial court verdict had stated: "From the testimony of the occurrence witnesses, they do not appear to have been tutored. The signs of having been tutored were not found while analysing their evidence."
They appear to be "truthful", it stated.
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