This time around, her statement went into the realms of mystery and disbelief. On November 3 Zaheera Sheikh, the star prosecution witness in the Best Bakery case, dropped a bombshell when she turned hostile once again. Twenty-one people were charged with the massacre at the Best Bakery in Vadodara, Gujarat, which was seemingly in retaliation for the Godhra attack in which 59 Hindus were burnt to death on a train allegedly by a Muslim mob.

PICTURE SPEAK

DRAMATIC TWISTS: Sheikh's credibility is at stake

After Sheikh first turned hostile in May 2003, the fast-track court at Vadodara had let off all the accused in the case. But much to the embarrassment of the Narendra Modi Government in Gujarat, she surfaced in Mumbai in June 2003 and told reporters that she was forced to turn hostile after receiving threats from extremist Hindu organisations.

Later, the Supreme Court ordered a retrial of the case and simultaneously transferred it to Maharashtra in what was seen as an unprecedented judicial gesture. And, because of her tirades against the Modi Government, she had become the darling of the human-rights lobby.

So Sheikh's U-turn virtually numbed the senses of activists when she laid down her anti-Modi gun and trained it instead on human-rights activist Teesta Setalvad. This past week, only a day before she was to depose before the court in Mumbai, Sheikh told a press conference at Vadodara: "I was hijacked from here to Mumbai at Setalvad's behest by four persons carrying knives ... they told me to speak in the interest of the Muslims. Whatever I said after going to Mumbai was under coercion."

U-TURNS

1 MARCH 2002: Two days after the Godhra massacre armed Hindus attack the Best Bakery in Vadodara, killing 14 Muslims. 17 MAYy 2003: Key witness Zaheera Sheikh turns hostile, saying she could not identify the accused. JUNE 2003: Sheikh says she turned hostile following threats. 3 NOVEMBER, 2004: She makes a U-turn. Says social activists forced her to accuse wrong people.

Setalvad was rattled but tried to put up a brave face, saying, "Sheikh's latest charges are all false. Despite her turning hostile the case against the accused in the retrial is very strong." Setalvad drew solace from the fact that at least three witnesses in the case have identified about half-a-dozen men during the retrial being conducted in Mumbai.

As for the Sangh Parivar in Gujarat, it reacted with caution. Says Gujarat unit BJP chief Rajendrasinh Rana: "The matter is sub judice. We cannot comment on it."

Something that will affect not only the Best Bakery case but other Gujarat riot cases as well is Sheikh's statement that she has now no objection to the retrial being conducted in Vadodara. In fact, she went to the extent of saying that the judgement delivered by the fast-track court at Vadodara in May, 2003, acquitting all the 21 accused in the Best Bakery case, was correct.

Lawyers who fought for transferring the trial of riot cases outside Gujarat feel Sheikh must have succumbed to pressure and have demanded a CBI probe. "Police must have been harassing and torturing her relatives. She must have been forced to turn against those who helped her fight for justice. The trial court must now order a CBI probe into her statement," says Supreme Court senior advocate Prashant Bhushan. Setalvad merely pointed to the timing of Sheikh's third U-turn, coming as it did on the eve of November 4, when she was due to appear before the trial court in Mumbai.

As for the Modi Government, this seems to be the only good news it has had in a long while.

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