Zaheera was paid to turn hostile: Tehelka

In yet another twist to the Best Bakery case, a sting operation carried out by Tehelka newspaper captured Bhar-atiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Madhu Srivastava purportedly saying that key witness Zaheera Sheikh was paid Rs 18 lakh to turn hostile in the case in which all the 21 accused were acquitted by a fast-track court in Gujarat in July 2003.

A 10-minute video tape recording this and various other aspects of the spycam operation was played at a jam-packed press conference here by Tarun Tejpal, editor-in-chief of Tehelka.

In the tape, claimed to have been shot over the past one month, Srivastava's cousin and Congress Councillor CB Srivastava was heard saying the Gujarat government had "100 per cent" given her money to turn hostile for the second time"" during the ongoing retrial in Mumbai.

When asked by Vadodara Corporator Nisar Bapu, whose conversations with other politicians were caught on camera by the Tehelka reporter, how much money had been paid to Zaheera, Madhu replied "Rs 18 lakh". Tejpal said Bapu did not know that the discussion was being recorded by a spy-cam.

While Madhu could not be reached in Vadodara for comments, Batthoo claimed that they were "totally innocent". The tape, whose audio quality was not good, showed Batthoo commenting that Zaheera and her family had themselves approached Madhu for money.

In 2001, Tehelka as a news portal had sho-wed then BJP chief Bangaru Laxman purportedly accepting money for pushing a fictitious deal following which he had to quit the post.

In the present video-tape, Batthoo is heard saying: "The whole family would keep going to Madhu again and again, time and again. Do this for us, do this, our bakery will get started again, this will happen. Drove us up the wall. Then finally, Madhu took the decision that let us give her money. First it started from Rs 25 lakh and got stuck at Rs 18-20 lakh. Then after collecting cash from everyone, she was given Rs 18 lakh in cash."

"The money would have been given 100 per cent. She had gone there for the money as well, " Batthoo said.