Friday, January 14 2005 17:05 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The police is investigating into media reports of a bank account in the name of Zaheera Shaikh, the prime witness in the Best Bakery case, wherein large amount of money was deposited by some unknown source over a period of time, a senior police officer said today (Jan 13, 2005).

Thane (rural) Superintendent of Police Ramrao Pawar said police was probing to determine whether money was deposited into the accounts of Zaheera and her brother Nafitullah.

"We are acting on the media reports about money being deposited and that two robberies were attempted in the same bank," Pawar told sources in Mumbai adding that a police officer, Senior Police Inspector Rajendra Ghule has been conducting a preliminary enquiry into the reports.

A prominent news channel had said that various deposits were made in the two accounts with Syndicate bank in suburban Bhayander between December 2003 and March 2004. There were, however, no withdrawals made by either Zaheera or her brother.

Bank officials were immediately not available for comments.

Meanwhile, the special public prosecutor in the case Manjula Rao, talking to sources in Mumbai denied that they would be summoning bank officials for examination in this regard.

The defence counsel D S Jambaulikar also dismissed the reports saying that the deposits of money was irrelevant to the case as it was done much before the re-trial into the case began in Mumbai.