[Gujarat Riots] Two accused in Best Bakery case move Mumbai court alleging witness tutoring by Teesta Setalvad

Two of the accused in the Best Bakery case related to the 2002 Gujarat riots have filed an application before Mumbai Sessions Court seeking transfer of the matter to another court..The application filed through advocate Yogesh Deshpande stated that their confidence in the trial court has been shaken and they are worried as to whether they would get justice or be punished in a routine and mechanical manner. They also urged that activist Teesta Setalvad be investigated for allegedly tutoring witnesses in their case.The accused, Harshad Solanki and Mafat Goil, claimed that the trial court ignored their concerns that witnesses were being tutored. According to the plea, the accused was a victim of a conspiracy organised by Setalvad and her accomplices to implicate innocent people.The accused are on trial in a case alleging that they were part of a mob that raided Best Bakery in Hanuman Tekri, Vadodara, in 2002, killing 14 people. The trial for the co-accused ended in 2006, and their appeal was heard by the Bombay High Court in 2012.Their application stated that Teesta's arrest brought some relief for the accused that they would now get justice.They further stated in the plea that they had called Gujarat Police and requested that the probe into Teesta Setalvad's actions not be limited to the incident mentioned by Zakia Ehsan Jafri."The entire gamut of cases wherein members of Teesta’s crime syndicate interfered with process of law and fabricated evidence require a thorough investigation," the plea read.The accused also objected to the delay in trial, which they alleged has kept them in prison for the last decade. In this regard, it was pointed out that two of the accused died behind bars.Concerning the hearing in the Mumbai court, the application claimed that certain unusual things occurred in the past, and the trend demonstrated that there were efforts of a "repeat performance" to which the trial court was merely becoming a mute spectator even after knowing the illegalities of prosecution.Setalvad, former DGP RB Sreekumar and ex-IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt were arrested last month for allegedly forging evidence in the Zakir Jafri case. The Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) had taken activist Teesta Setalvad into custody from Mumbai on June 25, a day after the Supreme Court judgment which had urged action against persons who had made false allegations against State of Gujarat regarding its handling of the 2002 communal riots.The Supreme Court while giving clean chit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was the Chief Minister of Gujarat during the time of riots, had come down upon former Gujarat Police officials RB Sreekumar and Sanjiv Bhatt as well as Teesta Setalvad in its judgment.