It was Independence Day — for rapists and murderers.
11 convicts who were serving life sentences for mass murder and gang-raping Muslim girls in Gujarat in 2002 were freed on August 15. Their release was ordered by the state government. It was not an accident that their release occurred on the 75th anniversary of India’s independence from colonialism. The men were dressed in their finest when they emerged from prison.
Bilkis Bano was the only survivor of a group of Muslims who were attacked with lethal weapons and chased by a group of Muslims. She received the news that her attackers had been released with shock and disbelief. “How can justice for any woman end like this?” she asked in a statement.
Bilkis, five months pregnant, was one of three women who were gang-raped in the sex attack by the convicts. Her daughter Saleha’s head was smashed before her, killing her instantly. She was just three years old. 14 people were killed in the attack.
From that moment, Bilkis fought against the odds — and the might of the Gujarat state government then led by current Prime Minister Narendra Modi and still headed by his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — for justice. The local police officer who registered her case, after she walked almost naked from the scene of the crime, distorted her account to make the case weaker, according to the Central Bureau of Investigation, India’s premier investigative agency. A court later found that doctors and police officials falsified records, destroyed evidence, and attempted to manipulate the autopsy process. The wheels of justice began to turn slowly after the National Human Rights Commission, (NHRC), took up her case.
Because the Supreme Court believed that fair trials were impossible in Gujarat, the case was moved to Gujarat. A Mumbai court convicted the accused for rape and murder in 2008. This verdict was upheld later by higher courts. In 2019, the Supreme Court requested the Gujarat government give Bilkis Banno Rs 50 lakh ($625,560), a home and a job in compensation. This was a record-breaking amount for such cases, and it emphasized the extraordinary nature the crime.
This wasn’t just about Bilkis. Bilkis had to hide for her safety and move from one place indefinitely, so many feminists, human rights defenders, and organisations joined forces to shelter her. Their fight was also for every victim of the genocidal crimes against Muslims. It is all the more horrendous when people with no criminal records decide to rape or kill women and men for their faith, as was the case in 2002.
Now justice is being trampled upon.
After one of the convicts appealed to the Supreme Court for release, the top court of the land asked the Gujarat government to act in keeping with the state’s remission policy in 2002. Using holes in that policy, a Gujarat government-appointed committee — loaded with BJP members — recommended remission. Never mind that Bilkis, who lives near the homes of the released convicts must now fear for her safety and life as well as her family’s safety.
Why was this done on Independence Day, you ask? The symbolism is inescapable, especially since Modi had — only hours earlier — spoken about the need to respect women, in a speech to the nation. It is inconceivable that the Gujarat government could have pressed ahead with the release of the convicts without the consent of the prime minister’s office and the office of the home minister, Amit Shah, who is Modi’s most trusted lieutenant. Shah held the home office during Modi’s time as Gujarat chief minister too.
The message to Bilkis and all those who held her hands while she fought for justice is clear: This is how battles for justice will end in Modi’s India; that crimes against Muslims — even mass murders and gang rapes — will be treated lightly.
None of this is surprising, unfortunately. After all, it was under Modi’s rule in Gujarat that Bilkis first had to run for her life and hide from the state machinery. It was Modi’s government in the state that fought her as she battled for justice.
It is important to recall that Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (one of the ideological gurus in the ruling dispensation) had once justified rape to Hindu women as a legitimate weapon to deter Muslims.
It is not an accident that so-called Hindu religious leaders have made calls for the murder of Muslims as well as the rape of Muslim women in recent months. Indian authorities have instead of punishing those who exposed the hate speech, such a fact-checker Mohammad Zubair (arrest on spurious grounds).
Equally worrying is the role of some bodies that had once stood by Bilkis — like the Supreme Court. After the Supreme Court suggested that Teesta Setalvad’s pursuit of justice for victims of the Gujarat pogrom was an act of conspiracy, the Supreme Court arrested her.
If the message to Muslims is to not expect justice, the signal to the BJP’s supporters is that they are immune from punishment for any crime. That in fact, any allegations that a Hindu has committed a crime against a Muslim must be a conspiracy — irrespective of the evidence available. This is the claim that some are making about the Bilkis case’s 11 men.
Indian civil society has been outraged by the remission of their sentences. Most opposition parties have condemned the move. Interestingly, the newest contender for power in Gujarat, the Aam Aadmi Party — which rules in the national capital, Delhi, and in the state of Punjab — has maintained a studied silence. Is it choosing to be politically expedient over justice?
The BJP, through decisions like this — which should be abhorrent to all sensitive people — is trying to make its constituents, who are mostly Hindu, partners in this perversity. They must protest this release.
The implications for India’s 200 million Muslims are even more dire: Justice, even if secured as an exception, can be undone at any moment. They, like many Indians, celebrate the nation they love, but now it is turning its back on them.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
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