Bano, now in her forties, was five months pregnant when she was gang-raped during the 2002 anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat state.
India’s Supreme Court has quashed the remission given to 11 Hindu men who had been jailed for life for the gang rape of Bilkis Bano and murdering her relatives during anti-Muslim riots in the western state of Gujarat in 2002.
The top court on Monday directed the 11 men to surrender to the prison authorities in Gujarat within two weeks.
“Their plea for protection of their liberty is rejected,” the court said. “To keep them out would not be in consonance of the rule of law.”
Bano, now in her 40s, was five months pregnant when she was gang-raped during the violence, which saw nearly 2,000 people, most of them Muslims, killed in some of the worst religious riots India has experienced.
Seven of the 14 people murdered in the incident were Bano’s relatives, including her three-year-old daughter, whose head was smashed on the ground by the perpetrators in Gujarat’s Dahod district.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was Gujarat’s chief minister at the time, and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) still rules the state.
The 2002 riots have long hounded Modi, who was accused of ordering the state authorities to allow and encouraged the bloodshed. Modi has repeatedly denied having any role and the Supreme Court has said it found no evidence to prosecute him.
The 11 men, convicted in early 2008, were ordered freed by the Gujarat government in August 2022 after the prison they were being held in recommended their release, considering the time they had served and their good behaviour.
Their release drew condemnation from the victim’s husband, lawyers, and politicians. Local media reported that several petitions were filed in the Supreme Court challenging the remission, including one by Bano herself.
In its verdict on Monday, the court held that Gujarat did not have the authority to reduce the sentence meted out since the trial of the case was moved to India’s financial capital Mumbai.
The Supreme Court said state government in Gujarat was not competent to pass the remission orders of the convicts, adding that “arguments with emotional appeal become hollow when placed in juxtaposition with the facts of the case”.
There was no immediate reaction to the verdict from the 11 men and the Gujarat government.
