New Delhi, September 29, 2022 (PPI-OT):Over 400 writers, artists and other prominent citizens have said that they are “shocked beyond belief” over the release of 11 convicts guilty of the brutal gang rape of Muslim woman Bilkis Bano and the murder of her family members. Bilkis Bano was gang raped and 14 members of her family, including her three-year-old daughter, were murdered by Hindutva goons during ant-Muslim riots in the Indian state of Gujarat in 2002.
The writers, artists and other prominent citizens issued a statement condemning the “unspeakable brutalisation and trauma” suffered by Bilkis Bano, and said the Gujarat government’s decision to release the imprisoned convicts under the state’s remission policy on August 15 makes it even more “inhumane”. They also expressed anguish over convicts being felicitated.
Among the 401 signatories are member of Rajya Sabha (upper house of Indian Parliament) Jawhar Sircar; politician and columnist Sudheendra Kulkarni; journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta; actor, activist and politician Nafisa Ali.
The statement said, “We believe that the remission and the government’s silence sends out a signal of impunity and sets a precedent that is inhuman and immoral. We, therefore, urge you to ensure immediate and complete revocation of the order of remission and thus restore the faith of all our citizens in justice, humanity and civilization.”
Earlier, in an open letter to the Supreme Court, 134 former members of the All India Services, under the banner of the Constitutional Conduct Group, had expressed their “deep distress” over the premature release of convicts. They had urged the top court to rectify the “horrendously wrong decision” by the Gujarat government, questioning the grant of remission to the convicts.
Separately, around 6,000 signatories, including activists, eminent writers, historians, filmmakers, journalists and former bureaucrats, had on August 18 urged the apex court to revoke the premature release order.
“On the morning of August 15, 2022, in his Independence Day address to the nation, the Prime Minister of India spoke of women’s rights, dignity and ‘Nari Shakti’. That very afternoon, Bilkis Bano, a woman who embodied that ‘Nari Shakti’ in her long and daunting struggle for justice, learnt that the perpetrators who killed her family, murdered her three-year-old daughter, gang-raped and left her to die, had walked free,” the signatories had said in a joint statement.
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