Zahira at the special court in Mumbai on Monday. (PTI)

Mumbai, Nov. 29: Star witness in the Best Bakery case Zahira Sheikh made an appearance at the special Mumbai court today, but she was not produced before it.

Zahira?s lawyer Harshad Ponda told judge Abhay Thipse that Zahira was present on the court premises and ready to be examined. But public prosecutor Manjula Rao said she would like to examine Zahira at the end, before which more witnesses for the prosecution would be presented.

Zahira wanted to appear today in lieu of her mother Shehrunnisa, who was to be produced in court today. But Shehrunnisa was ill, Ponda said.

After her turnaround news conference in Vadodara, where she said activist Teesta Setalvad had forced her to make false statements implicating innocents in the case, Zahira, who was being regarded as the prime witness, is expected to turn hostile in the witness box.

Her mother, too, is expected to turn hostile.

Her two brothers Nafitullah and Nasibullah, produced as witnesses for the prosecu-tion, have already turned hostile.

A witness produced before the court today, Sailun Khan, identified 15 of the accused. The prosecution said that he was treated for a year for trauma in Nawabganj in Uttar Pradesh.

Sailun, 18, brother of Shehzaad, a Best Bakery worker who also deposed as witness, appeared to be under tremendous mental strain while he identified the accused.

Trembling, he named two of the accused as ?Sanju? and ?Dinesh? and said they had assaulted the bakery workers with swords after tying their hands.

He said Sanju was distributing weapons.

Sailun said they had robbed his brother Shehzaad of his money.

He said he also lost his money.

Sailun, who suffered grievous injury to his ear, head and leg, said he fell unconscious during the carnage on March 1 and 2 in which 14 people were killed. But he said there was a crowd of around 1,000 to 1,200 men who attacked the bakery and there were ?many swords?.

He identified a sword, saying that he was hit with a similar weapon on the head.

Firoze Ansari, a lawyer, filed an application in the court seeking action against Zahira for contempt of court by making statements to the media while the trial was in progress in a court.

He also demanded a CBI probe into Zahira?s turnaround.

The court asked the opinion of the public prosecutor, who said she would not make any statement till she examined Zahira.