10 years on, Best Bakery now home to Hindus

VADODARA: The curse of the Best Bakery seems to have withered away a decade after 14 Muslims were burnt alive here by a mob in the post-Godhra riots. The lengthy legal battle for justice — during which the case was transferred to Mumbai — set the tone for other 2002 riot cases. Today, however, a handful of Hindu families have made the bakery their home.
Kailash Vasava, key witness Zahira Sheikh’s sister-in-law, had survived the massacre and has made the bakery her home.Also known as Hina, she has rebuilt the ground floor, added rooms to it and rented them out to some families, which are migrants from Uttar Pradesh. Most of them are daily-wage labourers or run small businesses like pani puri stalls.
The tenants are aware of their new home’s tragic history, but shy away and lock themselves in as soon as one asks them about the killings on March 1, 2002. Kailash, too, is reluctant to speak, insisting that she has moved on. “I have a son and a daughter and both go to school. The rent from these rooms helps me pay their fees,” she says. She is Zahira’s brother Nafitullah’s second wife.
At least half-a-dozen families are packed into the dingy rooms with no ventilation. Ironically, Zahira’s family too had migrated to Vadodara from a village in UP.
The landlady says she has been living peacefully with Hindus in the locality. “We have no problems with them. I do not want to dig up old issues as it would spoil our our relationswith my neighbours,” she says. As many as 21 people have been convicted in the massacre.
Kailash says she has no contact with Zahira and the rest of her husband’s family. “They have never come here to visit me. They may be reluctant to take responsibility of me and my children,” she says.