AHMEDABAD: The prime witness in the Best Bakery communal riot case, Zahira Sheikh, on Wednesday denied that she had ever lodged any police complaint about the burning of the bakery on March 1, 2002.

She also denied that she was under any kind of pressure when she told the Vadodara fast track court that she did not recognise any of the accused. She said she had first met the Mumbai-based social activist, Teesta Setalvad, only after she was "per force'' taken to Mumbai by some of her "accomplices.''

Appearing before the G. T. Nanavati-K. G. Shah judicial inquiry commission probing the Godhra train carnage and the post-Godhra communal riots in Gujarat, Ms. Sheikh denied that she had filed any affidavit before the commission on the Best Bakery incident. She said that when she was in hospital after the incident, the police did take her signature on some written documents, but she did not know it was taken as her complaint to the police. She claimed that when she signed the paper, she did not know its contents nor did the police read it out to her.

She said she had told the Vadodara fast track court that she had narrated the incident to the police but she was not aware that what was produced as her complaint exactly matched with what she had told the police. She said she was not aware if the fast track court had declared her a hostile witness, claiming that she had never changed her version about the incident. She claimed that hearing some noise of a mob approaching her house, she and other family members had escaped to the terrace of the house where they stayed the entire night and it was not possible for anyone to recognise some of the accused in the mob from that position.

Ms. Sheikh was appearing the commission after seeking a series of adjournments on various grounds for the last four months and when almost on the verge of being issued an arrest warrant for repeatedly ducking the commission. She was not accompanied by her lawyer but still appeared confident in her replies.

Though she made some contradictory statements about Teesta Setalvad forcing her to "implicate'' some of the accused, she denied that she had filed any affidavit before the commission. She reiterated that her signature in the affidavit dated May 20, 2002, produced before the commission was genuine but was not in agreement with all its contents. Contradicting her earlier statement that she did not know Teesta Setalvad till she was taken to Mumbai after the judgment of the Vadodara fast track acquitting all the 21 accused, she named some of Ms. Setalvad's "henchmen'' to be in touch with her to file an affidavit before the commission on the line desired by them.

Even though she repeatedly claimed that she was abducted to Mumbai by Ms. Setalvad's "henchmen" and was kept virtually under house arrest for about a month in her house "sometime in the year 2003,'' she admitted that at no stage neither she herself nor any of her family members lodged any police complaint about the actions of Ms. Setalvad and her accomplices. Later in reply to a question, Ms. Sheikh said she had no intention to move the Supreme Court. She said she had to go to the Supreme Court only because Ms. Setalvad had filed a petition in the apex court, she said.

While at the last hearing in April, she had declined to give any detail of the incident feigning that she had forgotten the minute details, this time she drew almost a graphic picture of the incident on March 1 in which she agreed that the bakery was set afire by a violent mob of about 700 people as a reaction to the Godhra train carnage.

She said Ms. Setalvad's accomplices, Mohammad Vora, Munna Malik and Arif, wanted her to name seven persons as accused but she did not know any of them.

Ms. Sheikh's cross-examination by the advocate of the riot victims, Mukul Sinha, concluded.

The commission was also informed that a representative of the U. C. Bannerjee committee, which had inquired into the train carnage and had already submitted an interim report holding the fire in the train to be "accidental,'' only submitted a copy of the interim report to the Nanavati-Shah commission.

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