I smiled for first time in 1.5 years’: Bilkis Bano after SC cancels remission of 11 convicts

Ahmedabad: “Today is truly the New Year for me. I have wept tears of relief. I have smiled for the first time in over a year and half. I have hugged my children. It feels like a stone the size of a mountain has been lifted from my chest, and I can breathe again,” Bilkis Bano said in her first reaction after the Supreme Court on Monday quashed the early release of 11 men jailed for life for gang-raping her and murdering her seven relatives during the 2002 Gujarat riots.


In a note issued through her advocate Shobha Gupta, she said: “This is what justice feels like. I thank the honourable Supreme Court of India for giving me, my children and women everywhere, this vindication and hope in the promise of equal justice for all”.
Bano was three months pregnant when she was gang-raped. Her three-year-old daughter was among seven of her relatives who were murdered during the riots, which left 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, dead.
The 11 men were convicted in 2008. The Gujarat government ordered their release in August 2022, drawing condemnation.
The Supreme Court on Monday said Gujarat did not have the authority to reduce the sentence since the trial was moved to Mumbai, which made Maharashtra responsible for the decision. It said a 2022 order of the court directing the Gujarat government to consider remission was obtained fraudulently and by suppressing material facts.
“A year and half ago, on August 15, 2022, when those who had destroyed my family and terrorised my very existence, were given an early release, I simply collapsed. I felt I had exhausted my reservoir of courage. Until a million solidarities came my way,” Bano said in the note.
“Thousands of ordinary people and women of India came forward. They stood with me, spoke for me, and filed PIL petitions in the Supreme Court. 6000 people from all over, and 8500 people from Mumbai wrote appeals; 10,000 people wrote an Open Letter, as did 40,000 people from 29 districts of Karnataka. To each of these people, my gratitude for your precious solidarity and strength. You gave me the will to struggle, to rescue the idea of justice not just for me, but for every woman in India. I thank you,” said Bilkis .
Bano and her family have relocated from their native Randhikpur village in Gujarat due to safety concerns.