Zaheera’s lessons to the ‘seculars’, to the judiciary
09-11-2004

The media has always had a good time in this country. It never felt troubled by truth while espousing 'secular' causes. But the month of November did not begin too well for the media. First, it was physically thrashed in Kerala by the 'secular' Muslim League. As it was a 'secular' beating, they could not even cry ‘secularism is in danger’. Next the media has been psychologically orphaned in Gujarat, the laboratory the seculars in and out of the media had set up to damage the nation’s image at the global level. In Kerala, the media had trusted the Ice Cream Parlour girl Rejina to sensationalise the sexual exploits of a Muslim League Minister. She let them down very badly by going back on her juicy statements. Almost simultaneously the Best Bakery girl Zaheera Sheikh too betrayed them by retracting from her statement against the Gujarat government. The media had made her icon to globally brand almost the entire Hindu race as barbaric. The first one is not a decent thing to write about. So on to the next, the Best Bakery.

 

For three years now, the ‘seculars’, particularly in the media, had turned Best Bakery case in to an international show. The main actors in the drama are Teesta Setalvad and Zaheera Sheikh. Teesta is an activist of human rights, the most respectable, yet lucrative, multi-billion dollar global business today. Zaheera was the eye witness in the Best Bakery attack in Gujarat in March 2001 in which 14 Muslims were butchered. This was in retaliation to the Godhra train attack in which 56 Hindus were fried to death. Zaheera’s family members, including her father, were killed in Best Bakery. The ‘seculars’ succeeded in making India and the world forget Islamist fundamentalists frying 56 Hindus in Godhra by making Best Bakery as the sole issue. They did this entirely on the testimony of Zaheera. She first turned against the prosecution and in favour of the accused in the trial court. This resulted in acquitting the 20 accused. Then she came in contact with Teesta who perhaps counselled her how to tell ‘the truth’. Soon Zaheera filed affidavits before the National Human Rights Commission saying that she was threatened to tell lies in the trial court and exonerate the accused. Believing her the NHRC forthwith moved the Supreme Court against the acquittal. Under Teesta’s guidance, Zaheera too moved at lightening speed. Moved the Supreme Court and also filed the same kind of affidavits in the Gujarat High Court, which was hearing the appeal against the acquittals in the Bakery case. The High Court dismissed the appeals and upheld the acquittals. In doing so, it warned that ‘Zahira was being used by some persons with oblique motives’, which proved prophetic, but only now.

 

Relying on the affidavit of Zaheera and the petition of NHRC, the Supreme Court began virtually monitoring the Best Bakery prosecution. And the case became the passport for the human rights industry to get the SC to intervene in all riot cases in Gujarat. Except, of course, the Godhra case, where the human right industry was claiming that the VHP itself torched the train and killed its members just to accuse the Muslims! Based on Zaheera’s testimony, as the star witness, the SC ordered retrial and transferred the trial in Best Bakery to Maharashtra. Relying on Zaheera’s words the SC equated Narendra Modi to the Roman Emperor Nero, who fiddled as Rome burnt, and counselled the Gujarat government on Rajdharma. It also castigated the High Court for disbelieving Zaheera. Thanks to Zaheera and the human rights industry, credibility of the Gujarat and India was destroyed in the eyes of the world at large.

 

Now Zaheera is as stunningly back in the news as she did earlier. But this time around she says that what she told the SC on oath was false. That what she told the NHRC was a lie. What she told the trial court, that the accused were innocent, was the truth. That she was threatened by her own people at the instance of Teesta to implicate the accused falsely! That Teesta got her to sign papers in English which she did not understand. That she did not even know Teesta was moving the SC! So, on her new testimony, the SC passed its judgement on a petition which the petitioner was not aware of! Zaheera says that she and her family were held captive by Teesta. Teesta denies it. But Javed Ahmed, Joint Commissioner, Mumbai Police says ‘Teesta always told us they were with her at a secret place’. Obviously Teesta is lying.

 

The 'secular' media’ should share the blame. Its open air trial had surcharged the whole country and it had its fall out on the judiciary also. The highest judiciary seems to have been cheated by Teesta and the human rights industry to distrust the Gujarat High Court itself. Zaheera has changed her testimony thrice outside the courts. That is why criminal law says that evidence given outside the trial court should not be trusted. The Gujarat High Court stuck to this rule and dismissed Zaheera’s affidavit. Yet the Supreme Court castigated it for that. But now Zaheera has gone back on what appears to be really Teesta’s proxy petition in Zaheera’s name tells the Supreme Court. Yet the judgement of the Supreme Court based on such a testimony and on a flip-flop Zaheera stands. Lesson: do not trust Teestas and the human rights industry, and more, the 'secular' media blindly. This is the lesson Zaheera has taught.