Mumbai, July 2 -- "No, the police were not attacked in our area." Qutbuddin Shaikh, one of the last surviving witnesses of the Suleman Usman Bakery police raid that took place 33 years ago, told defence advocate Viral Babar at the sessions court on Wednesday that while it was true that many incidents took place in his area of Mohammed Ali Road during the post-Babri Masjid demolition riots of 1992-93, the police had not been attacked in any of them. Nor had he read any government records saying that the police had been attacked, he said. Shaikh was cross-examined at the trial of six police officers accused of gunning down eight unarmed Muslims during a raid on the Suleman Usman Bakery and an adjacent madrasa on January 9, 1993. With the public prosecutor absent, and no intervenor in the case, this prosecution witness, who was also a victim of the raid, faced cross-examination on his own. The police have maintained they were being fired upon from the bakery's terrace, a claim rejected both in the charge sheet filed against them, as well as by the Srikrishna Commission of inquiry into the riots. Justice BN Srikrishna had indicted the then joint commissioner of police, RD Tyagi, and his team for "excessive and unnecessary" firing. Shaikh, who was then a student at the madrasa, had earlier testified during his examination-in-chief that the police had barged into a room where students and teachers were resting after lunch, assaulted everyone and beaten him unconscious. During his cross-examination on Wednesday, Shaikh repeated his earlier testimony that with a curfew in place, nobody was allowed to step out, and the doors of the bakery and madrasa were closed. The police had called him to give his statement only once, in 2002, he said. In his examination in chief, Shaikh had stated the correct year: 2001. Following the cross-examination, standing outside the court, Shaikh took some time to believe that he wouldn't have to come back. "I've become a grandfather twice over, but this case has not left me," the 51-year-old imam told this reporter. Nor had the after-effects of the assault on him 33 years ago. "The blows they gave me with rifle butts on the back of my head not only still hurt, but they destroyed my memory," he said. "As a student, I'd taken pains to memorise the Quran; it all disappeared. For days after, I couldn't even recognise my father. Finally, only (well-known psychiatrist) Dr Yusuf Matcheswalla cured me. I used to lose my temper at my children for no reason; it's only gradually that I calmed down." For years after the assault, the sight of a uniformed policeman would make his blood pressure shoot up, said Shaikh. "They beat me from head to toe, not leaving a single limb untouched, with whatever they could. It took three months of treatment by my village doctor for my wounds to heal," he said. Despite all the pain and suffering, Shaikh said he had never feared testifying, either before the Srikrishna Commission or now in court. "Why should I fear when I've done no wrong?"...