India’s high courtroom on Monday restored life sentences for 11 Hindu males convicted of the gang rape of a Muslim girl in a case that grew to become a strong image of the widespread violence in opposition to Indian ladies and of communal tensions typically exacerbated by Indian politicians.
The sufferer, Bilkis Bano, was three months pregnant when she and 15 members of her household tried to flee their village in 2002 throughout Hindu-Muslim violence within the state of Gujarat, in western India. The chief minister of Gujarat on the time was Narendra Modi, who’s now the Indian prime minister.
Ms. Bano and her household got here beneath assault by closely armed Hindu rioters, who, along with raping Ms. Bano, additionally killed her 3-year-old daughter by smashing her head on a rock and raped her mom and a cousin.
On Monday, India’s Supreme Court docket stated that the Gujarat authorities had acted past its powers in granting the assailants early release from jail in August 2022. The courtroom ordered the criminals, who had been greeted by right-wing Hindu nationalists with sweets and garlands upon their return house in 2022, to give up inside two weeks.
Vrinda Grover, a human rights lawyer primarily based in New Delhi, stated that the courtroom’s choice amounted to “a scathing indictment of the state of Gujarat.”
The set off for the 2002 riots, which left greater than 1,000 lifeless, most of them Muslims, was a train fire that killed dozens of Hindu pilgrims. Mr. Modi has lengthy been accused of getting turned a blind eye to, and even inspired, the mob violence, although the Supreme Court docket has cleared him of the allegations.
In 2008, a courtroom sentenced 11 of 13 defendants within the Bano case to life imprisonment on costs of homicide and gang rape.
When the federal government in Gujarat, which is run by Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Celebration, ordered the discharge of the convicts in 2022, it was extensively seen as an effort to rally the occasion’s Hindu-right base earlier than a state election. The Indian house affairs minister, Amit Shah, thought of Mr. Modi’s right-hand man, accepted the Gujarat choice. The B.J.P. went on to win the state election.
After the 11 males had been launched, Ms. Bano stated, “I’ll stand and struggle once more, in opposition to what’s incorrect and for what is true.”
On Monday, the Supreme Court docket justices wrote that they’d thought of whether or not a discount in sentence was applicable in instances of crimes corresponding to these dedicated in opposition to Ms. Bano. They stated that the lads had misplaced their proper to liberty as soon as they’d been convicted and imprisoned and that the Gujarat authorities had lacked the authority to cut back the sentence as a result of the trial had been shifted from Gujarat to Mumbai.
“The first responsibility of the courtroom is to uphold justice and rule of regulation,” the justices wrote in an order. “Justice encompasses not simply the rights of the convicts but additionally the rights of the victims.”
