Do Men Who Committed 3 Gangrapes & Murdered 14 People Including Kids Deserve Leniency? Bilkis Bano's Lawyer To Supreme Court

Do the men convicted for brutally gang-raping Bilkis Bano and killing her entire family in front of her eyes deserve the leniency they have been accorded, Advocate Shobha Gupta asked the Supreme Court of India on Monday, while arguing that the punishment befalling the convicts ought to be proportional to the nature and seriousness of the crime committed by them. A bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan was hearing a clutch of pleas against the decision of the Gujarat government to grant remission to the 11 convicts who had been sentenced to life imprisonment for multiple murders and violent sexual assault during the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat. Last year, on Independence Day, the convicts were allowed to walk free after their application for remission of the sentence was approved by the state government. The division bench today appeared keener to discuss the technical aspects regarding the premature release of the convicts, but Gupta insisted that an examination in some detail of the crime committed by them would help contextualise the punishment they deserve. The nature of the crime that Bilkis’ rapists committed was especially material for the purposes of examining the question of remission, Gupta stressed. She told the bench: “I want to highlight the crimes themselves and the way they have been executed. Bilkis herself was brutally gang-raped multiple times while she was five months pregnant. Her first child was smashed on a rock to death. Her mother and a cousin was gang-raped and murdered. Four minor brothers and sisters of Bilkis were murdered. Her cousin’s two-day-old baby was murdered. Aunts and uncles, other cousins…murdered.” Gupta also pointed out that Bilkis and her family had attempted to flee once the communal violence broke out in Gujarat in 2002. They were on the run from February 28, till March 3, when the family was slaughtered in a gruesome manner. “This is not a spur-of-moment incident. The convicts were chasing them, trying to find out where they had hidden. They were bloodthirsty. The bodies that could be recovered…The heads and chests were smashed. Only seven could be found since the place of the incident was not protected.” Justice Nagarathna asked, “Did it come on record that there were 14 deaths?” “Yes,” Gupta responded, “The conviction says that there have been 14 deaths and three gang rapes.” During the hearing, Gupta read out the details of the injuries suffered by survivors and those found on the bodies of the deceased. To explain her motive behind this exposition, she said that apart from technical factors like the lack of an application of mind, and arbitrariness, the nature of the crimes itself was an important consideration when deciding the question of remission. “Bilkis saw her first child’s head being smashed on a stone. She kept pleading to the attackers because she was from the same locality as them. That is why she could name them. She knew them because they were from the locality. But they showed her or her family no mercy…Are these people – the perpetrators who have been found guilty of committing these crimes – deserving of the leniency shown to them?” In this connection, Gupta also relied on the adverse opinions delivered by the sentencing judge as well as the Central Bureau of Investigation with respect to the remission of Bilkis’ rapists.The hearing in the case will continue tomorrow. We thought it was over but then convicts were released from jail to celebrations: Gupta tells Supreme Court Saying that the Supreme Court had already taken ‘judicial notice’ of the extraordinary circumstances surrounding this case, Gupta read out the observations made by the Supreme Court while directing Bano to be awarded ₹50 lakh as compensation, a government job and housing in an area of her choice in the first such order relating to the 2002 Gujarat riots. A three-judge bench headed by then-chief justice Ranjan Gogoi had observed in an order: “Bilkis Yakub Rasool, is a victim of riots which occurred in the aftermath of the Godhara train burning incident in the State of Gujarat on February 27, 2002. While eventually, the perpetrators of the crime including the police personnel stand punished, the appellant, who was aged twenty-one years and pregnant at that time, having lost all members of her family in the diabolical and brutal attacks needs to be adequately compensated…She was repeatedly gang-raped and was a mute and helpless witness to her three-and-a-half-year-old daughter being butchered to death. This factual position is undisputed and unchallenged in light of the findings of the trial court upheld by the high Court and this court…The gruesome and horrific acts of violence have left an indelible imprint on her mind which will continue to torment and cripple her.” After Gupta read out this passage, Justice Nagarathna asked her, “Was this order complied with?” ...

Do Men Who Committed 3 Gangrapes & Murdered 14 People Including Kids Deserve Leniency? Bilkis Bano's Lawyer To Supreme Court

Awstika Das

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