Ahmedabad: The Gujarat government on August 7 filed a criminal appeal in the High Court, challenging the order of a fast track court in Vadodara that acquitted 21 persons accused in the Best Bakery massacre during the post-Godhra communal violence, sources said.

An additional sessions judge H U Mahida of a fast track court at Vadodara had acquitted 21 people accused on June 27 after several crucial witnesses, including key eye-witness Zaheera Shaikh, daughter of the bakery owner Habibullah, who was among those killed in the massacre, turned hostile.

An armed mob had ransacked and torched the Best Bakery on March 1, 2002 at the Hanuman Tekri area and slaughtered 12 people including women and children, while two persons are still missing since the incident.

The Gujarat government also simultaneously moved an application challenging the decision of a Godhra sessions court earlier, in which several persons accused of atrocity and rioting during the communal violence were also acquitted.

Sessions judge K C Kella had acquitted one Sajid alias Rabdi Hanif Jamal Shiekh in a case of atrocity and rioting after he alleged led a 500 strong mob to attack a Dalit colony in Lunawada town of Vadodara on March 1.

However, no one was killed in the incident.

PTI