Washington: Voices from America have also started to rise over the acquittal of eleven criminals who gang-raped Balquis Bano in India.
According to media reports, Abraham Cooper, vice president of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, said in a statement that the USCIRF was responsible for the gang-rape of a pregnant Muslim woman and the murder of Muslims during the Gujarat riots. Condemns the premature and unjust release of individuals.
USCIRF Commissioner Stephen Schneck tweeted that the failure to hold accountable those responsible for physical and sexual violence in the Gujarat riots is a travesty of justice.
He said that this case is part of the pattern of escaping punishment by torturing religious minorities in India.
Who is Bilqis Bano?
It should be remembered that in the year 2002, Bilqis Bano was brutalized in the Muslim riots after the Godhra train burning incident at the age of 21 when she was five months pregnant and her family was killed in this incident. Seven people were killed very brutally.
On February 27, 2002, after the burning of the Sabarmati train in Godhra, Muslim riots broke out across Gujarat.
Fearing the spread of violence, Bilqis, along with her three-and-a-half-year-old daughter and 15 other family members, went to her village called Randhikpur and took shelter in Chaparwad district, but misfortune did not leave her behind.
On March 3, about thirty savage-looking men armed with sickles, swords, and clubs attacked Bilqis and his family.
These savages raped Bilqis, her mother and three other women and killed the family members with extreme brutality which can be inferred from the fact that the accused beat Balqis’s young daughter to death on the ground. Only three people survived the tragedy, including Bilqis, a man and a three-year-old child.
According to the reports of that time, Bilqis regained consciousness three hours after the Qayamat Sughra passed, then he took clothes from a woman to cover his naked body and with the help of the home guard went to Lamkheda police station to file a complaint where he was given a medical examination. He was taken to a government hospital.
His case was taken up by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and the Supreme Court, which ordered a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation.
Two years later, in 2004, the accused in the case were arrested and the trial started in Ahmedabad, however, after concerns about tampering with the evidence collected by the CBR and fear of harming the victim’s witnesses. The Supreme Court of India transferred this case to Mumbai.
The case went on for four years and finally in 2008, a special CBI court sentenced eleven accused to life imprisonment under the Indian Penal Code after they were convicted of rape, murder and conspiracy to commit unlawful assembly of a pregnant woman. Sentence was passed and seven other accused, including a policeman and two doctors, were acquitted due to lack of evidence, while one of the accused died during the trial.
According to the court verdict, Jaswantbhai Nai, Govindbhai Nai and Naresh Kumar Mordia (deceased) raped Bilqis while Shailesh Bhatt killed her young daughter by beating her to the ground. Among them were Radhe Shyam Shah, Bipin Chandra Joshi, Kesarbhai Vohnia, Pradeep Vohnia, Bakabhai Vohnia, Rajubhai Soni, Nitesh Bhatt, Ramesh Chandna and Head Constable Somabhai Gowri.
In 2017, the Bombay High Court upheld the conviction and life imprisonment of all the convicts in the gang-rape case, while in April 2019, the Supreme Court of India directed the Gujarat government to pay Balquis Bano Rs 50 lakh as compensation along with her choice. Job and accommodation should also be given.
All these criminals have been released a few days ago after being pardoned by the Gujarat government.