The release of 11 men convicted in the gang rape of Bilkis Bano and the murder of her 5-year-old daughter and 13 other people during the Gujarat riots in 2002 shocked an IAS officer from the Telangana cadre. As a woman and a government servant, Smita Sabharwal, also known as The People’s Officer, stated that upon learning of the discharge of the defendants in the Bilkis Bano case, she sat in shock.
“As a woman and a civil servant, I sit in disbelief, on reading the news on the #BilkisBanoCase,” the 2001-batch IAS officer tweeted. “We cannot snuff out her Right to breathe free without fear, again and call ourselves a free nation.”
As a woman and a civil servant I sit in disbelief, on reading the news on the #BilkisBanoCase.
We cannot snuff out her Right to breathe free without fear, again and call ourselves a free nation. #JusticeForBilkisBano pic.twitter.com/NYL6YS59Gh— Smita Sabharwal (@SmitaSabharwal) August 18, 2022
Additionally, Bilkis Bano’s attorney made a statement on the survivor’s behalf in which she said that the release of the defendants had destroyed her confidence in the legal system and left her feeling numb.
“On August 15, 2022, the trauma of the past 20 years washed over me again when I heard that the 11 convicted men who devastated my family and my life and took from me my three-year-old daughter had walked free,” she said in a statement released by her lawyer Sobha. “I was bereft of words. I am still numb.”
She has pleaded with the Gujarati government to “correct this harm” and restore her right to “live without fear and in peace.”
There has been a widespread outcry about the release of the convicts under the previous 1992 remission regime, and many people are demanding the Supreme Court to get involved. Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, and Jairam Ramesh, among other senior Congress leaders, criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), claiming that the choice would not have been made without the approval of the national government.
After a BJP MLA who served on the state government panel that recommended the release said that some of the prisoners were “Brahmins” with good “sanskaar,” or morals, the argument heated up. The Godhra-based BJP MLA, C K Raulji, claimed to be unaware of the inmates’ possible involvement in the crime.
“We took the decision on the basis of a Supreme Court order. We were asked to look at their (convicts’) behaviour and decide (on their early release),” Raulji told MoJo, a news portal. “We asked the jailer and learnt that their behaviour was good in the prison…also, some of the convicts) are Brahmins. They have good ‘sanskaar’ (values),” he added.
