When in doubt, conduct a sting operation. The truth will come out. What however, is construed as truth depends on which side of the fence you are on. If it happens to be–heaven forbid–the Modi side, you are done for; if however, it happens to be the Setalvad side, you have some luck. For she has paragons of truth and epitomes of courage on her side: the People’s Paper… why bother listing when it’ll suffice to say that she has virtually the entire secular media on her side?

After Zaheera’s reversal, Setalvad was on shaky ground. In a desperate attempt to restore credibility, she badmouthed the person she had “sworn to protect against communal forces.” While tender Zaheera had turned against her protector: she alleged that Setalvad had intimidated her, and her kept her in virtual imprisonment.

Everything was silent for a few days. Zaheera’s face was (temporarily) out of the front pages.

Bang!

The People’s Paper came out with yet another scoop! Another sting operation! This operation exposed Zaheera for all she was worth. She was an opportunist. She received Rs.18 Lakhs from Madhu, a local BJP (but of course!) MLA, which explains her reversal. There! That settles it, doesn’t it?

Here’s the sequence of events as narrated by Gurumurthy:

For three years now, the `seculars’ and human rights traders had turned Best Bakery case into an international show. The main actors in the drama are Teesta Setalvad and Zaheera Sheikh. Teesta is an activist of human rights, the most respectable, yet lucrative, multi-billion dollar global business today. Zaheera was the eye witness in the Best Bakery attack in Gujarat in March 2001 in which 14 Muslims were butchered. This was in retaliation to the Godhra train attack in which 56 Hindus were fried to death. Zaheera’s family members, including her father, were killed in Best Bakery. The `seculars’ succeeded in making India and the world forget Islamist fundamentalists frying 56 Hindus in Godhra by making Best Bakery as the sole issue. They did this entirely on the testimony of Zaheera. She first turned against the prosecution and in favour of the accused in the trial court. This resulted in acquitting the 20 accused. Then she came in contact with Teesta who perhaps counselled her how to tell `the truth’. Soon Zaheera filed affidavits before the National Human Rights Commission saying that she was threatened to tell lies in the trial court and exonerate the accused. Believing her the NHRC forthwith moved the Supreme Court against the acquittal. Under Teesta’s guidance, Zaheera too moved at lightning speed.

She moved the Supreme Court and also filed the same kind of affidavits in the Gujarat High Court, which was hearing the appeal against the acquittals in the Bakery case. The High Court dismissed the appeals and upheld the acquittals. In doing so, it warned that `Zaheera was being used by some persons with oblique motives,” which proved prophetic, but only now.

Relying on the affidavit of Zaheera and the petition of NHRC, the Supreme Court began virtually monitoring the Best Bakery prosecution. And the case became the passport for the human rights industry to get the SC to intervene in all riot cases in Gujarat. [...]

Now Zaheera is as stunningly back in the news as she was earlier. But this time around she says that what she told the SC on oath was false. That what she told the NHRC was a lie. What she told the trial court, that the accused were innocent, was the truth. That she was threatened by her own people at the instance of Teesta to implicate the accused falsely! That Teesa got her to sign papers in English which she did not understand. That she did not even know Teesta was moving the SC! So, on her new testimony, the SC passed its judgement on a petition which the petitioner was not aware of! Zaheera says that she and her family were held captive by Teesta. Teesta denies it.

• If Zaheera indeed took Rs.18 Lakhs from the BJP MLA to change her testimony, how much did she take from Teesta Setalvad to feign claim that her initial testimony was given under duress?

• Why did The People’s Paper take so long to conduct their sting operation? Why didn’t they conduct it earlier? Let me put it this way: why weren’t the details of the “sting” operation made public earlier? If we carefully read the reports about Tehelka’s “sting” operation, nowhere do we find a mention of the exact date when it was carried out.
• Was the operation carried out at Teesta’s behest so Teesta could save her skin? What is Teesta trying to hide?

A quick analysis will reveal this: in all probability, Teesta after getting Zaheera under her “protection,” might have been sure that Zaheera would testify as she wanted her to, and that Zaheera’s volte face understandably stunned her. If Setalvad is indeed the “crusader against communalism” that she claims to be, what gives her the need to get down to big time cheapness: calling her names and hurling other abuses? Why did Zaheera plead with the police to protect her from Setalvad?

Next, how valid (and/or admissible in court as evidence) are these “sting” operations that seem to be conducted with amazing regularity, and is in all instances, targeted against “communal forces” alone? Why aren’t sting operations conducted against say, Lalu? Or Taslimuddin who has known links with terrorists? On what basis does Tehelka pick its victims? What is the guarantee that the Fearless Crusader for Probity in Public Life won’t use these tapes to blackmail its victims? Worse still, do we know about those people it has already blackmailed in the past (and may continue to do so even as I write this?)? Why isn’t its role being examined in the infamous Manoj Prabhakar-match fixing case, when it ultimately turned out that Manoj Prabhakar had duped people of lakhs of rupees by floating a bogus chit fund company, a single instance among other irregularities committed by him?

Finally, with all its ostentatious claims to ethics, how ethical are its “sting” operations?