August 25, 2022

Eleven men were sentenced to life in prison for gang-raping Bilkis Bano, during the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat, India. She was then 21 and five months pregnant.

Over three days of rioting, more than 1,000 people died, most of them Muslims. Fourteen members of Bano’s family, including Bano’s daughter, were among those killed by Hindu mobs. Bano and her husband Yakub Rasul are Muslims who ran a business selling goats and buffalos.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was then Gujarat chief minister, was criticised for not doing enough to prevent the carnage,” a BBC report stated. “He has always denied wrongdoing and has not apologised for the riots.”

Earlier this month, on August 15, the day India celebrated its 75th anniversary of independence from British rule, the Gujarat government freed the eleven convicts. The men had served only 15 years of their life-term prison sentence. In India, those serving life-terms for rapes are usually jailed until death.

That same day of national celebrations, during an address to the nation from New Delhi, Modi said, “I have one request to every Indian: Can we change the mentality towards our women in everyday life? It is important that in our speech and conduct, we do nothing that lowers the dignity of women.”

Upon their release from prison, the convicts were garlanded and fed sweets. C.K. Raulji, a Gujarat state legislator, was on the panel appointed by the state government which recommended the release. While speaking about the panel’s decision to the media, Raulji said that the convicts were well behaved in prison according to the jail official. He added, The Times of India reported, that some of the convicts “are Brahmins. They have good sanskar (values).”

Raulji is a legislator from the Bharatiya Janata Party, headed by Prime Minister Modi, which rules Gujarat. The release of the convicts, some analysts said, were likely related to legislative elections being held in the state later this year.

Since the convicts are now out, “We are thinking, ‘What will they do to us?’” Rasul, Bano’s husband told The New York Times. Bano, in a statement issued through her lawyer, said the decision to free the men had "shaken" her faith in justice in India. "How can justice for any woman end like this?” 

Cartoon by John Gracias. Text by Global Indian Times staff.

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