M A I N   N E W S

NHRC team’s report on Best Bakery
case within week

Vadodara, July 8
The team of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), which is on a day-long visit here today to examine documents pertaining to the Best Bakery case, today said that it would present its report to the commission within a week.

“We have come here to collect the police and court records related to the Best Bakery case and will submit a report to the commission within a week”, Registrar of Law Ajit Bharihoke told mediapersons, winding up their one-day visit.

He refused to comment on whether the NHRC would recommend the re-opening of the case, in which 21 accused were acquitted on account of lack of evidence and witnesses turning hostile.

Earlier in the day, senior officials of the NHRC held a closed-door meeting for an hour with city Police Commissioner Sudhir Sinha.

Mr P.G.J. Nampoothri, Special Rapporteur for the commission in Gujarat, accompanying Mr Bharihoke and Mr Sudhir Chaudhary, DIG (Investigations), said the team had no intention to visit the bakery massacre site, located at Hanuman Tekri.

The NHRC members also held a meeting with District and Sessions Judge J.C. Upadhyay at the court and examined the 24-page judgement.

The acquittal of the accused had generated a lot of heat, with NHRC Chairman A.S. Anand terming it as miscarriage of justice, even as key witness Zahira Sheikh, who had turned hostile during the trial, sought the re-opening of the case in a higher court outside Gujarat.

Meanwhile, BJP MLA Madhu Shrivastava threatened today to file a defamation suit against Zahira Sheikh and members of her family, charging them with having conspired with the Congress to defame the Narendra Modi government.

Mr Shrivastava said Zahira had given six different statements from different fora. It was for the courts to decide which of these was true, he said. — PTI, UNI