India court quashes early release of 11 men in Muslim woman’s gang-rape case

NEW DELHI: India’s top court quashed the remission in sentence given to 11 Hindu men who had been jailed for life for gang-raping a pregnant Muslim woman and murdering her relatives during Hindu-Muslim riots in Gujarat state in 2002.

The court also directed the men to surrender to prison authorities within two weeks. “Their plea for protection of their liberty is rejected,” the court said. “To keep them out would not be in consonance of the rule of law.”

The victim, Bilkis Bano, was three months pregnant when she was gang-raped and seven of her relatives, including her three-year old daughter, murdered during the riots that swept through the state, killing more than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was Gujarat’s chief minister at the time and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party still rules the state.

The men, convicted in early 2008, were ordered freed by the Gujarat government in August 2022 after the prison they were being held in recommended their release considering the time they had served and their good behaviour.

Their release drew condemnation from the victim’s husband, lawyers, and politicians. Local media reported that several petitions were filed in the Supreme Court challenging the remission, including one by the victim herself.

In its verdict on Monday, the court held that Gujarat did not have the authority to reduce the sentence meted out since the trial of the case was moved to the financial capital Mumbai.

“Supreme Court holds that the State of Gujarat was not competent to pass the remission orders of the convicts,” reported Indian news agency ANI. There was no immediate reaction to the verdict from the 11 men and the Gujarat government.