August 9, 2003	Saturday	Jumadi-us-Sani 10, 1424

NEW DELHI, Aug 8: India’s supreme court on Friday ordered the government of Gujarat to provide protection to a key witness to the murder of 12 Muslims during the carnage last year.

The court issued the order during a hearing on a petition by India’s autonomous National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to reopen the trial of 21 people acquitted over the massacres.

The court ordered Gujarat’s government to extend protection to 17-year-old Zaheera Sheikh, who has fled the state as she seeks justice for her father and 11 workers who were killed in a bakery. Zaheera Sheikh on Friday also filed a separate petition for a retrial.

Twenty-one men were acquitted last month by a court in Gujarat after Zaheera and 72 other witnesses retracted their incriminating testimony. She said later that she lied in court after threats from local right-wing Hindu leaders.

A three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice V. N. Khare, ordered the Gujarat government of Chief Minister Narendra Modi to provide within a month “statements of witnesses given to the police and the statements made by them to the lower court” which had ordered the controversial acquittals.

“The court wants to know from the Gujarat government what steps it has taken to extend protection to the victims and their family members and what action has been taken against those who allegedly threatened the witnesses,” a court official said.—AFP