Mumbai: An eye witness to the Best Bakery carnage today (Oct 27, 2004) identified seven accused in the court saying they were members of the riotous crowd that pounced on the bakery workers and tied their hands and feet before torching them on the intervening night of March 1 and 2, 2002.

Deposing before designated judge Abhay Thipsay, Taufel Ahmed Habibullah, who was employed in the bakery, said the rioters came in the wee hours and asked the workers assembled on the terrace of the bakery to come down while assuring them that they would not be harmed.

He said the group of people then put up a ladder and helped the workers to climb down. Then they tied their hands and feet and pushed them in the bakery premises.

The helpless workers were later assaulted with swords and set afire, the witness told prosecutor Manjula Rao. Taufel said he too was injured in the attack and showed the court, injuries received by him in the neck, head, chest, right leg and palm.

Toufiq said he remembered having seen three women and four children dropping dead in the attack. He also said that bakery workers Baliram Prasad and Ramesh died in the assault.

The witness had yesterday (Oct 26, 2004) told the court that he had worked in the bakery for two years and after the incident, he went to his native place.

Fourteen people, most of them from minority community, were burnt alive when a crowd set ablaze Best Bakery on March 1, 2002.

Although 21 accused were tried by a fast track court, they were acquitted since witnesses turned hostile. The Gujarat High Court also upheld the lower court order acquitting the accused.

Later, the prime accused Zaheera Sheikh moved the Supreme Court with the help of an NGO, seeking retrial on the ground that she was intimidated during earlier trial.