Zaheera Sheikh

The Best Bakery case (also called Tulsi Bakery case) was a legal case involving the burning down of the Best Bakery, a small outlet in the Hanuman Tekri area in Vadodara, India, on March 1, 2002. During the incident, a mob targeted the Sheikh family who ran the bakery and had taken refuge inside, resulting in the deaths of 14 (11 Muslims including family members and 3 Hindu employees of the bakery). This case has come to symbolize the carnage in 2002 Gujarat riots (and the alleged State Government complicity in it) that followed the Godhra train Massacre. All the 21 accused were acquitted by the court due to shoddy police work and issues with evidence. It was the first case to be tried with respect to the Godhra riots.

On March 1, 2002, communal frenzy enveloped Vadodara. The Best Bakery, a small outlet in the Hanuman Tekri area of Vadodara, was attacked by a mob, which burned down the bakery, killing 14 people. This attack was part of the 2002 Gujarat riots. As per a televised interview by Zaheera Shaikh, one of the survivors who had witnessed the entire saga, a large mob surrounded the bakery in the evening, around 8 pm. They first stole all the goods that were kept in the bakery including sacks of flour. Thereafter they set fire to the bakery and the people inside, most of them Zaheera's relatives, shouting that no one should escape alive from it.

Amnesty International reports that in many cases of the Gujarat violence, police recorded complaints in a defective manner, failed to collect witnesses' statements as well as corroborative evidence and did not investigate the responsibility of eminent suspects. The Best Bakery case was seen by human rights organizations in India as a test case given that what Amnesty calls "strong evidence" against the accused existed, but the victims gained little justice.

The case was tried at a fast court by the Vadodara sessions court judge Hemantsinh U Mahida. It lasted less than two months (9 May - 27 June 2003).

The case hinged on the first hand evidence presented in two FIR (First information reports) that had been presented - that of Raizkhan Amin Mohammed Pathan and of Zaheera Sheikh. In addition, evidence was provided by a large number of witnesses whose evidence was secondary (indirect or hearsay).

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