Best Bakery case accused seek Teesta Setalvad's investigation for 'tutoring witnesses'

Two of the accused in the Best Bakery case related to the 2002 Gujarat riots have sought investigations into activist Teesta Setalvad's alleged role in tutoring witnesses in the matter.

Two of the accused in the Best Bakery case related to the 2002 Gujarat riots have filed an application before a Mumbai court seeking transfer of the matter to another court as their “confidence in the trial court has been shaken”. They also urged that activist Teesta Setalvad be investigated for allegedly tutoring witnesses in their case.

The accused — Harshad Solanki and Mafat Goil — alleged the trial court did not take cognisance of their apprehension that witnesses were being tutored. The application filed through advocate Yogesh Deshpande of Yashas Legal stated: “The accused is a victim of a conspiracy hatched by Teesta Setalvad and her accomplices to implicate innocents.”

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The accused are being tried in a case that alleges they were part of a mob that had attacked Best Bakery at Hanuman Tekri, Vadodara, on March 1, 2002, and killed 14 people. The trial for the co-accused had concluded way back in 2006 and even their appeal was decided by the Bombay high court in 2012.

According to the application, the news of Teesta’s arrest “brought some relief for the accused that he would now get justice”.

The accused said in the application that they had approached Gujarat Police and urged them that the “investigation into the acts of Teesta Setalvad should not be restricted to the incident referred by Zakia Ehsan Jafri”. “The entire gamut of cases, wherein members of Teesta’s crime syndicate interfered with the process of law and fabricated evidence require a thorough investigation,” it read.

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