The Hindu : National : Zahira's grandmother makes surprise appearance

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jan 21, 2005

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National

Zahira's grandmother makes surprise appearance

MUMBAI, JAN. 20. The grandmother of Zahira Sheikh, the key witness in the Best Bakery Case, made a surprise appearance in the special court while Zahira was being cross-examined. The old woman was made to return without letting her utter a word, sources said today.

The 75-year-old Zarina, who cannot walk or see properly was brought by two people to the court. When the Special Public Prosecutor, Manjula Rao, asked Zahira if she knew the old woman, she said: "She is my nani [maternal grandmother]."

Zarina, a resident of Uttar Pradesh, had lost her son, Kausar Ali, in the riots on March 1, 2002, during which the Best Bakery was set afire. No witness has taken Kausar's name during the retrial in the case here after its transfer from Vadodara.

The Judge told Zarina to go home, saying that she would be issued summons if she wanted to depose in the case.

While Zahira's family got compensation for the death of her sister, Sabira, and for damages to the Bakery, Zarina is yet to receive anything from the Gujarat Government as Kausar does not figure in the deceased list in police records.

Zahira said that she did not know how and when her sister Sabira died.

According to the prosecution, Sabira was killed in the attack on the bakery.

She said that she came to know of Sabira's death in the hospital on March 3, 2002, a day after she and her family members were rescued and taken there.

The prosecution, however, put to her the previous statements where she had said that Sabira's death had been caused by a fire that the mob had set. She had then accepted that her sister had died during the fire.

She denied the contents of the FIR which was again put before her today. — UNI, PTI

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