Retrial delayed for Best Bakery- Gujarat case

Mumbai (AsiaNews) - The new trial on the Best Bakery case, expected to take place June 7th , has been adjourned until June 21st. Judge A. Thipsay in fact accepted the request of the Maharashtra and of the Gujarat governments for more time to name the public prosecutor.  In 2002, during the Hindu- Muslim riots, 2 thousand Muslims were killed. On  March 1 2002, 14 persons were burnt alive in the Best Bakery, in the town of Vadodara, in the Baroda district.  On the massacre a trial it was founded.  Last September 12, 23 suspects were acquitted for lack of evidence.  The sole-cooperating witness of the massacre, then 19-year-old Zaheera Sheikh, retracted her statement.  Later it was revealed that  Zaheera had received death threats for her testimony.  V. N. Khare, Chief Justice of the  Supreme Court, severely criticized the "modern Neroes" that turned a blind eye "when Best Bakery and innocent children and women were burning".  Khare retains that the regional authorities how the "perpetrators of the crime can be saved or protected."  During the time of the massacres, the Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was in control of  the government in the state of Gujarat.  (NC)