Key Gujarat riot trial postponed

The Muslims were burnt alive inside the bakery

A fresh trial of Hindus accused of killing 12 Muslims during the 2002 Gujarat riots has been postponed.

Twenty-one Hindus were acquitted of burning the Muslims to death at a bakery in the city of Baroda during the riots, which left more than 1,000 dead.

A retrial, ordered by India's Supreme Court, was due to start on Thursday.

However, police asked the presiding judge for more time to find seven defendants still on the run. The judge delayed the retrial until 8 September.

The case is being heard in Bombay (Mumbai) in the neighbouring state of Maharashtra.

The retrial had been demanded by India's Human Rights Commission.

The Supreme Court has appointed two new public prosecutors for the retrial.

It said they should enjoy the trust of the victims' relatives and witnesses.

Threatened

The court has also given the Gujarat government a month to let it know what steps it has taken against people said to be intimidating witnesses in the case.

The Best Bakery case, named after the bakery where the Muslims were killed, is often cited by human rights groups as evidence that victims of the Gujarat riots received little, or no, justice.

Most of those who died in the 2002 riots were Muslims. The violence took place after a suspected Muslim mob attacked a train in Godhra, killing nearly 60 Hindu passengers.

The acquittals in the original case took place after many witnesses withdrew their evidence.

Later, a key witness, Zaheera Sheikh, said she lied in court and not testified against the accused because she said she had been threatened by senior Gujarati politicians.

Human rights groups and independent organisations accused the state government, run by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party of doing little to stop the riots.