WITNESSING MY RAPISTS GO FREE “HOW CAN JUSTICE FOR ANY WOMAN END LIKE THIS? BILKIS BANO

Thu 18 August 2022:

Bilkis Bano, who was gang-raped and witnessed the murder of 14 members of her family by a Hindu mob during the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in the western Indian state of Gujarat, is back in the news.

On Monday, 11 inmates who were serving life terms for the case’s rape and murder were greeted as heroes as they were let out of prison.

The inmates were pictured lined up outside the Godhra jail as family offered them treats and patted their feet in respect in a video that has since gone viral.

These 11 who are being welcomed with sweets were sentenced for life by the court but released by the govt for gang-raping a pregnant muslim woman, Bilkis Bano during 2002 Gujarat riot. They had also killed her 7 family members, including her 3yr daughter. pic.twitter.com/UqzTed5bbO

— Ashok Swain (@ashoswai) August 16, 2022

In a late-night statement on Wednesday, Bilkis Bano called the decision to free the men “unjust” and said it had “shaken” her faith in justice.

“When I heard that the convicts who had devastated my family and life had walked free, I was bereft of words. I am still numb,” she said.

“How can justice for any woman end like this? I trusted the highest courts in our land. I trusted the system, and I was learning slowly to live with my trauma. The release of these convicts has taken from me my peace and shaken my faith in justice,” she wrote, appealing to the Gujarat government to “undo this harm” and “give me back my right to live without fear and in peace”.

Bilkis Bano saw seven members of her family — including her little daughter — murdered in March 2002 as violence spiralled after a compartment of the Sabarmati Express was set on fire in Godhra, killing 59 people.

The woman, who was five months’ pregnant, was gangraped.

“We Are Very Scared”

“The Supreme Court, the Bombay High Court gave orders and still… In just one move, our fight of 18 years is over. We are scared. We weren’t informed about the release,” Bilkis Bano’s husband Yakub Rasul told NDTV in an interview.

The decision to free the convicts was announced by the Gujarat government on Monday, as India celebrated its 75th anniversary of independence.

Bilkis Bano’s husband Yakub Rasul was asked by NDTV, if they are going to seek legal redress, Mr Rasul said, “We are still in shock and don’t know whether we will question it”. “We have no legal papers and don’t know much right now. We are still in shock. What happened with us is complete injustice,” he added.

The family, he confirmed, was not informed about the release. “We had no idea, we got to know about it from the local media. We learnt at the last moment,” he said.

Asked if they are concerned about their safety now that the rapists are out, and whether they will move from their current home, Yakub Rasul said, “We can’t say anything whether we’ll move to another place or not”.

Horrific details

The morning after the train fire, Bilkis Bano – then 19 and pregnant with her second child – was visiting her parents in a village called Randhikpur near Godhra with her three-year-old daughter.

“I was in the kitchen making lunch, when my aunt and her children came running. They said their homes were being set on fire and we had to leave immediately,” she told me. “We left with just the clothes we were wearing, we didn’t even have the time to put on our slippers.”

Bilkis Bano was in a group of 17 Muslims that included her daughter, her mother, a pregnant cousin, her younger siblings, nieces and nephews, and two adult men.

Over the next few days, they travelled from village to village, seeking shelter in mosques or subsisting on the kindness of Hindu neighbours.

On the morning of 3 March, as they set out to go to a nearby village where they believed they would be safer, a group of men stopped them.

ELEVEN CONVICTS IN GUJARAT GANG RAPE, MURDER CASES FREED IN INDIA

“They attacked us with swords and sticks. One of them snatched my daughter from my lap and threw her on the ground, bashing her head into a rock.”

Her attackers were her neighbours in the village, men she had seen almost daily while growing up. They tore off her clothes and several of them raped her, ignoring her pleas for mercy.

Her cousin, who had delivered a baby two days earlier while they were on the run, was raped and murdered and her newborn was killed.

Bilkis Bano survived because she lost consciousness and her attackers left, believing she was dead. Two boys – seven and four – were the only other survivors of the massacre.

Bilkis Bano’s fight for justice was long and nightmarish. It has been well documented that some police and state officials tried to intimidate her, evidence was destroyed and the dead were buried without post-mortems. The doctors who examined her said she hadn’t been raped, and she received death threats.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

FOLLOW INDEPENDENT PRESS:

TWITTER (CLICK HERE)
https://twitter.com/IpIndependent