MUMBAI, April 29 -- It took three years and four months for Dr A G Shinde to complete his testimony in the Suleman Usman Bakery case, where six policemen are being tried for murder of 8 unarmed Muslims during the 92-93 riots. However, of the 22 times that the retired doctor travelled from Kolhapur, where he now lives, his testimony was recorded only on three occasions -- the first in December 2022 and the last on Tuesday. The other 19 times that the 75-year-old doctor, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, obeyed the court's summons, he had to return without testifying as hearings were adjourned for a variety of reasons. Shinde's wife has cancer. It meant leaving her with their daughter in Pune before each visit to the court. The raid on the famous bakery situated on Mohammed Ali Road, and its adjoining madarsa took place on January 9, 1993, during the second phase of the post-Babri Masjid demolition riots. None of those shot dead had a criminal record. 18 policemen were charged with murder in 2001; nine, including former commissioner of police Ram Dev Tyagi who led the raid, were discharged in 2003. Three have died since the case was filed. Dr Shinde was a crucial witness as he had performed the post mortems (PM) of the victims of the raid. However, the original PM reports could not be produced in court as they were among official documents destroyed in 2005 because they were too old, on orders of the police commissioner. Significantly, these reports were destroyed even though the charge sheet against the policemen was filed in 2001 and they would have served as crucial evidence. The copies of the report in the court records were therefore treated as exhibits and relied upon. However, the original reports were relied upon by the Srikrishna Commission set up to investigate the riots. Indicting Tyagi and his two aides for their "excessive and unnecessary firing", the Commission noted that "the PM reports do not indicate that the persons were hit by bullets while facing and confronting the police. On the contrary, they are suggestive of the victims being shot in the back while trying to flee. This is the opinion of the forensic expert." On Tuesday, Dr Shinde withstood attempts by the defence lawyer Viral Babar to discredit the way he had performed the post mortems. Despite the large number of bodies being sent for post-mortem during the riots to the JJ Coroner's Court, he had read every ADR (Accidental Death Report) accompanying each body, he said. "Without reading the ADR, you can't do a post-mortem," he said. He also said that one hour was enough to conduct a post-mortem and make rough notes even for a body which had grievous injuries. Bullets retrieved from the bodies would be sealed by him and sent to the medico legal department of the Nagpada Police Hospital, which would then be forwarded for chemical analysis....