Indian media reports that eleven men were released from life imprisonment for gang rapes and murders committed during the 2002 Gujarat riots.
The 11 convicts in what came to be known as the Bilkis Bano case were freed on Monday from jail in Gujarat’s Godhra town after the state government approved their application for remission of sentence, said the reports.
After a train carrying many Hindu pilgrims caught on fire, 59 people were killed in an anti-Muslim pogrom. Hindu right-wing groups blamed local Muslims for the incident.
In the retaliatory violence that went on for days, nearly 2,000 people, most of them Muslims, were hacked, shot and burned to death in the western state, one of India’s richest. Hundreds of women were raped.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the state’s chief minister at the time and has been accused of not doing enough to stop the killings and even targeting human rights defenders fighting for the victims.
Bilkis Bano case
Bilkis Bano was gang-raped, and her three-year old daughter Saleha was killed by a Hindu crowd March 3, 2002 in Limkheda district in Gujarat. This was one of the most horrifying episodes of large-scale anti Muslim violence.
According to the court’s ruling, Saleha was killed by hitting her head on the ground. Bano was 21 and five months pregnant at the time. She survived by being unconscious during the carnage and then she lost consciousness.
The 11 men convicted were from Bano’s neighbourhood, she later told the prosecutors.
I won’t forget the night that I met my husband. #BilkisBano in a relief camp, her arm in a cast, broken by the marauders who first raped her mother, her two sisters, killed her 3 year old daughter & took turns assaulting a pregnant Bilkis. Bilkis & Yaqub named their newborn after their dead child
— barkha dutt (@BDUTT) August 16, 2022
Senior Gujarat bureaucrat Raj Kumar told The Indian Express newspaper on Monday the application for remission filed by the 11 convicts was considered due to the “completion of 14 years” in jail. Indian life sentences typically have a sentence of 14 years in jail.
India’s Supreme Court had ordered a federal investigation into the case by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). After Bilkis’ death threats, the Supreme Court of India ordered that the trial be transferred from Gujarat to Maharashtra in 2004.
In 2008, 13 of the 13 defendants were convicted by the Central Bureau of Investigation. 11 of them were sentenced to life imprisonment for gang rape as well as murder.
After a 17-year battle, the Supreme Court in 2019 awarded Bilkis a compensation of five million Indian rupees ($63,000) – the first such order in the Gujarat riots case.
‘Message to all seeking justice’
Commenting on the release of the 11 convicts, New Delhi-based lawyer Mehmood Pracha told Al Jazeera it is “one more proof of the convicts’ involvement with the political leadership of ruling Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP)”.
“They were involved in Gujarat carnage against the Muslim community. And now they (government) are living up to their promises which they had made to the criminals, culprits, and their cadres in the (Gujrat riots) case) that they will protect them from all legal prosecution and that’s what they are doing till date,” he said.
“This is a message to all seeking justice that you have to have good legal support. Unless you have a good legal team and you are determined to fight for your rights, getting justice especially under the current regime is becoming more and more difficult.”
Shri @PMOIndia @narendramodiDid you mean to say “respect women” y’day? These rapist “uncles”, “brothers,” and “brothers”, are they getting laddoos b/c they raped Bilkis Banko, a Muslim? https://t.co/E99S0aUnod
— Kavita Krishnan (@kavita_krishnan) August 16, 2022
In a statement, the All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA) slammed the Gujarat government’s decision. It said the decision to free Bano’s rapists emboldens such men and their followers to act on their threats.
“The conviction of communal killers and rapists is after all an aberration in India, not the rule. Does the remission intend to restore the rule of impunity for communal killers and rapists?” said the statement.
“Will Prime Minister Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah care to comment on this decision? Are we really to believe that this decision was taken without the blessing of these two topmost leaders of the BJP?” it asked.
AIPWA stated that the decision to release the 11 convicts was made on the 75th anniversary of India’s independence from British rule.
“#IndiaAt75 became a day of shame for India’s women because the ruling BJP chose to make it a day to free Bilkis’s rapists,” said the statement. “Today, it has become commonplace for Hindu supremacists to openly give calls for genocide and rape of Muslims – without any consequences.”
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