Yet again, Zaheera skips hearing

Her lawyer Harshad Ponda had informed the court yesterday that Zaheera was ready to depose but urged the judge to fix a date for recording her statement. The designated judge then asked him to consult the prosecution on the production of the witness.

Prosecutor Manjula Rao told reporters today that Zaheera had assured to depose but it now depended on the prosecution to examine her. ‘‘We shall not take any chance now as she is under police security and all precautions have to be taken. But her brothers, Nafitullah and Nasibullah, would be examined soon,’’ she said.

On November 3, Zaheera had told the Vadodara Collector that she was being pressured by social activist Teesta Setalvad to identify innocent persons as accused in the Mumbai court. She had also said that her original testimony before the fast-track court in Gujarat was true.

Meanwhile, a series of contradictions and omissions surfaced in the cross-examination of Zaheera’s sister-in-law Yasmin Shaikh, as defence lawyers grilled her on the basis of her police statement.

Yasmin had yesterday identified 11 accused in the court, saying they were members of the mob which attacked the Bakery on March 1, 2002. Replying to defence lawyer Adik Shirodkar, Yasmin said she had informed the police that the accused, Jagdish and Chintoo, had threatened to rape her but could not say why policemen had not recorded this in her statement. ‘‘I had even informed them (police) about what they had threatened to do after raping me,’’ she said.

Asked whether it was shameful for any woman, more so a married woman with a child, to hear that she would be raped, Yasmin retorted: ‘‘What do you want to establish?’’ The witness said she had informed the police that Munna and Mafat had also threatened to rape her.

Yasmin also could not state why police had not recorded that the rioters had robbed her gold chain worth Rs 10,000. Asked if the chain was costly, Yasmin said it was precious because it was given to her during marriage.

Yasmin also could not tell why police had not recorded that her four-month-old daughter was injured and that people holding swords and burning torches arrived at the Bakery from different directions.

Yasmin was dumbfounded when the Defence lawyer told her that social worker Thakker, whom she had named in her statement as a rioter, had passed away one year before the incident.