New Delhi, August 16, 2022 (PPI-OT): Eleven Hindus convicted on charges of gang-rape and murder of seven members of a Muslim family, which later earned fame in the media as Bilkis Bano case as part of 2002 anti-Muslim riots in the Indian state of Gujarat, have surprisingly been allowed to walk free.

The State government took the decision on the pretext of recommendations put forth by a local committee. The committee was formed after the Indian Supreme Court directed the State authorities to decide on merit following a convict’s petition in the apex court seeking premature release under the so-called remission policy.

The committee was set up and headed by the Godhra district Collector since the convicts were serving their sentence in the Godhra sub-jail. The convicts were awarded life imprisonment by a special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in Mumbai in January 2008 on charges of gang-rape and murder of seven members of Bilkis Bano’s family during the post-Godhra riots in the State, which was then led by Narendra Modi as chief minister.

Bilkis Bano had survived the massacre and her case was one of the most important cases related to the 2002 riots and its probe was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) while the trial was shifted from Gujarat to Maharashtra at the instance of the Supreme Court. The trial court’s conviction was upheld by the Bombay High Court also.

“The committee took the unanimous decision in favour of remission of all the 11 convicts,” a government official said. He said the government had accepted the recommendation of the committee and accordingly the convicts were released from jail.

Gujarat Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Raj Kumar told the media that the application for remission was considered due to the “completion of 14 years” in jail and other factors such as “age, nature of the crime, behaviour in prison and so on”.

Legal experts have raised question over remission under factors like “completion of 14 years in jail, age, nature of the crime, behaviour in prison” and so on and asked why the same rule is not applied over illegal incarceration of numerous people particularly in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir. “The legal system and judiciary has only complimented and facilitated the implementation of fascist policies by not protecting the citizens at any stage,” they said.

Dr. Muhammad Qasim Faktoo, they quote just one example, is among IIOJK’s longest serving prisoners. Born in downtown Srinagar in 1967, he has spent around 28 years in jail. It was jail, where he did his post-graduation and then doctorate in Islamic studies.

The case of Dr. Qasim Fakhtoo epitomises how political convictions, of being a Kashmiri Muslim sharing the political aspirations of the Kashmiri people is enough to earn the ire of the political establishment.

Dr Qasim’s trial which commenced in 1993 under Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) and other substantive offences involved the bureaucratic classification of laws, based on the profiling of Individual on the basis of “who they are and what they are likely to do”.

After the TADA court Jammu acquitted Qasim and other two in 2001, the occupying authority challenged the acquittal order before Supreme Court of India. Indian Supreme Court relying on the ‘confessions’ extracted from the accused persons in custody under extreme torture which cannot be relied upon under any accepted norms of criminal law and International humanitarian law, awarded Dr Fakhtoo a lifer in January 2003.

Dr. Muhammad Qasim Faktoo who is a scholarly figure and has spent his time educating the hundreds of inmates inside the jail preparing them for examinations for distance learning course under Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), concrete recommendations made by Jail authorities for granting him remission. But all attempts have so far failed. The reasons are simple. The ruling regimes who have not moral or legal right to remain in power are afraid of him. They have no answer to his arguments.

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