On 8 January, the SC quashed the remission granted to the 11 men convicted of gangraping Bano and murdering members of her family.
Published Jan 10, 2024 | 12:53 PM ⚊ Updated Jan 10, 2024 | 12:53 PM
Bilkis Bano case.
Following the Bilkis Bano verdict, a senior police official in Dahod, Gujarat, said, on Tuesday, 9 January, they have not yet received any information about the surrender of the 11 convicts in the case after the Supreme Court quashed the Gujarat government’s decision to grant them remission.
A police force remains deployed in the area where the convicts live to maintain peace, he said.
The convicts, however, are “not incommunicado” and some of them are visiting relatives, Dahod Superintendent of Police Balram Meena said.
“Police have not received any information (regarding their surrender) and we have not received the copy of the (Supreme Court) judgement,” Meena said.
The convicts are natives of Singvad taluka where police have been deployed since Monday morning, before the judgement was pronounced, to maintain law and order and ensure that communal conflicts do not break out, he said.
“The convicts are not incommunicado, and some of them are visiting their relatives. We have no information and have not received any order copy, but police remain deployed in the entire Randhikpur police station area,” Meena said.
Bilkis Bano was 21 years old and five months pregnant when she was brutally raped while fleeing after communal riots broke out in the aftermath of the Godhra train-burning incident in 2002. Her three-year-old daughter and six other family members were murdered at the time.
On 15 August 2022, all 11 convicts were granted remission by the Gujarat government and released.
However, on Monday, the Supreme Court Bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan said that the Gujarat government was not the appropriate government to pass the remission order.
The apex court held that the judgement of 13 May 2022 (which directed the Gujarat government to consider remission) is a nullity as it was obtained by ”playing fraud on the court” and by suppressing material facts.
“The Gujarat government usurped the powers of the Maharashtra government, acting in furtherance of the judgement dated 13 May 2022, which is, in our opinion a nullity. It was the state of Maharashtra which was the appropriate government to consider remission,” the Bench noted.
“The State of Gujarat acted in complicity with the convicts…it was this very apprehension which led this court to transfer the trial out of the state,” the Bench added.
The convicts have been directed to surrender before jail authorities within two weeks.
Reacting to the verdict, Bilkis Bano released a statement on Monday, issued through her advocate Shobha Gupta.
“Today is truly the New Year for me. I have wept tears of relief. I have smiled for the first time in over a year and half. I have hugged my children. It feels like a stone the size of a mountain has been lifted from my chest, and I can breathe again. This is what justice feels like,” Bano said in her statement.
She thanked the Supreme Court for their verdict in her favour, “I thank the honourable Supreme Court of India for giving me, my children, and women everywhere, this vindication and hope in the promise of equal justice for all.”
In her statement, she thanked her family and friends for their unwavering support, “I have said before, and I say again today, journeys like mine can never be made alone. I have had my husband and my children by my side. I have had my friends who have given me so much love at a time of such hate, and held my hand at each difficult turn. I have had an extraordinary lawyer, Advocate Shobha Gupta, who has walked with me unwaveringly for over 20 long years, and who never allowed me to lose hope in the idea of justice.”
She added, “Thousands of ordinary people and women of India came forward. They stood with me, spoke for me, and filed PIL petitions in the Supreme Court. 6,000 people from all over, and 8,500 people from Mumbai wrote appeals; 10,000 people wrote an Open Letter, as did 40,000 people from 29 districts of Karnataka.”
