03-16-2006, 11:42 PM
Op-Ed in Pioneer on the SC order sentencing Zaheera Sheikh...
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Leave her be </b>
Stop Press ------------ Zaheera Sheikh
<b>Last week, the star witness in the Best Bakery case, Zehraunissa Sheikh - universally known as Zaheera - was stamped a self-condemned liar by the Supreme Court.</b> The bench, comprising Justice Arijit Pasayat (former Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court) and Justice HK Sema, took a quick look at the BM Gupta committee's 150-page report, and read out its substance.
However, the judges said they were not accepting the report alone and have sought the opinion of defence counsel in regard to its "acceptability", and posted the matter for further hearing on October 24. A petition seeking review of the order will, therefore, soon be filed.
For Zaheera, and those keeping watching on the human side of the case, a ray of hope still flickers.
<b>Coming to the BM Gupta committee's Weltanschauung (overarching view), it charged Zaheera with turning hostile - read perjury under Section 193 of the IPC - and weakening her case substantially</b>. At the same time, however, the committee gave a clean chit to media-savvy and self-styled social activist Teesta Setalavad vis-a-vis the charges of inducement levelled against her by Zaheera.
<b>Looked at from the human angle, Zaheera is a lonely girl left in a Wagnerian storm. </b>On the one hand, she was subjected to a volley of questions for 40 days from special public prosecutor Manjula Rao. On the other, days before she was to hear the Supreme Court's harsh observation, she lost her brother Nafitullah, as doctors in Mumbai hospitals went on strike. <b>Zaheera and her mother are left with no elderly male member in their household.</b> Today, they are petrified, isolated souls, longing for help, a little solace.
Four years ago when their home was burnt down by rioters, their immediate need was of safe haven. <b>They asked the Anjuman Bahami Imdad Committee for help, which received large sums of foreign donations to help Best Bakery victims. The committee instead asked Zaheera for Rs 50,000 in return for a home!</b> That amount could have been afforded by Zaheera's family. They own a 20,000 sq ft property (worth about Rs 4 lakh) which needs to be sold. But who will do that for them? No "secular" organisation, no NGO, no Setalavad has come forward to help.
As a friend of Zaheera's family recently remarked: "Many Muslims like me believed, wrongly, that the relief committees were taking care of legal cases. <b>None of us knew that most of the NGOs were sitting on the funds given to them and doing nothing."</b>
So much so, the Muslim community almost proscribed Zaheera. There was not a single Muslim present in court when she gave evidence. <b>Incidentally, it was a Muslim who coerced her into twisting her statements. Numerous allurements as well as threats came her way</b>. Then there were those who assured her help in selling her property but nothing came of if.
<b>Ensnared by such emotional unrest, if Zaheera did turn hostile, the public opinion at least says let her be? At least she did finally tell the truth, admitting that she had lied earlier. </b>The last and lone straw she had to cling to. A person such as this deserves to be motivated to carry on her fight, not censure.<b> Like Hemingway's protagonists, she had to survive, and she did. </b>
Ashok Patnaik
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think the justices should have thrown the book at Teesta Setalavad for her role but then she is MC Setalavad's daughter who probably was the senior advocate for most of these Justices.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Leave her be </b>
Stop Press ------------ Zaheera Sheikh
<b>Last week, the star witness in the Best Bakery case, Zehraunissa Sheikh - universally known as Zaheera - was stamped a self-condemned liar by the Supreme Court.</b> The bench, comprising Justice Arijit Pasayat (former Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court) and Justice HK Sema, took a quick look at the BM Gupta committee's 150-page report, and read out its substance.
However, the judges said they were not accepting the report alone and have sought the opinion of defence counsel in regard to its "acceptability", and posted the matter for further hearing on October 24. A petition seeking review of the order will, therefore, soon be filed.
For Zaheera, and those keeping watching on the human side of the case, a ray of hope still flickers.
<b>Coming to the BM Gupta committee's Weltanschauung (overarching view), it charged Zaheera with turning hostile - read perjury under Section 193 of the IPC - and weakening her case substantially</b>. At the same time, however, the committee gave a clean chit to media-savvy and self-styled social activist Teesta Setalavad vis-a-vis the charges of inducement levelled against her by Zaheera.
<b>Looked at from the human angle, Zaheera is a lonely girl left in a Wagnerian storm. </b>On the one hand, she was subjected to a volley of questions for 40 days from special public prosecutor Manjula Rao. On the other, days before she was to hear the Supreme Court's harsh observation, she lost her brother Nafitullah, as doctors in Mumbai hospitals went on strike. <b>Zaheera and her mother are left with no elderly male member in their household.</b> Today, they are petrified, isolated souls, longing for help, a little solace.
Four years ago when their home was burnt down by rioters, their immediate need was of safe haven. <b>They asked the Anjuman Bahami Imdad Committee for help, which received large sums of foreign donations to help Best Bakery victims. The committee instead asked Zaheera for Rs 50,000 in return for a home!</b> That amount could have been afforded by Zaheera's family. They own a 20,000 sq ft property (worth about Rs 4 lakh) which needs to be sold. But who will do that for them? No "secular" organisation, no NGO, no Setalavad has come forward to help.
As a friend of Zaheera's family recently remarked: "Many Muslims like me believed, wrongly, that the relief committees were taking care of legal cases. <b>None of us knew that most of the NGOs were sitting on the funds given to them and doing nothing."</b>
So much so, the Muslim community almost proscribed Zaheera. There was not a single Muslim present in court when she gave evidence. <b>Incidentally, it was a Muslim who coerced her into twisting her statements. Numerous allurements as well as threats came her way</b>. Then there were those who assured her help in selling her property but nothing came of if.
<b>Ensnared by such emotional unrest, if Zaheera did turn hostile, the public opinion at least says let her be? At least she did finally tell the truth, admitting that she had lied earlier. </b>The last and lone straw she had to cling to. A person such as this deserves to be motivated to carry on her fight, not censure.<b> Like Hemingway's protagonists, she had to survive, and she did. </b>
Ashok Patnaik
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think the justices should have thrown the book at Teesta Setalavad for her role but then she is MC Setalavad's daughter who probably was the senior advocate for most of these Justices.