New Delhi: A day after the Supreme Court ordered the Gujarat government to provide a compensation of Rs 50 lakh and job to her, gang-rape survivor Bilkis Bano Wednesday said the top court has “let me know that it stands with me”.
“The honourable Supreme Court has let me know that it stands with me. No citizen should have to suffer at the hands of the state whose duty is to protect us,” said Bano at a press conference with her husband Yakub Rasool and lawyer Shobha Gupta by her side.
“They must pay for their enormous lapse of all morality in those hate-filled days and nights. This is the message for them that I hear in this order. And that is good and that is right,” she added.
Bano was gang-raped during the Gujarat riots in 2002. She was then 19 years old, and five months pregnant. Fourteen members of her family were killed by a mob at Gujarat’s Randhikpur village when they were fleeing after the Godhra riots in March 2002.
“From the beginning, I’ve faced strife. I wasn’t given security, the state was hostile, and we lived in fear,” Bano said. “But, my faith now lies in the Supreme Court and the Constitution.”
Bano said some of the compensation money would go to a trust formed in the name of her slain firstborn daughter, Saleha, and for other survivors of sexual and communal violence.
“I will use this money to educate my children and give them a stable life,” Bano said.
This is perhaps the first time in India’s history that a rape survivor has been compensated with an exemplary amount of Rs 50 lakh. Bano was first offered Rs 5 lakh compensation by the Gujarat government, but she refused to accept it, and moved the Supreme Court.
“I’m not concerned with the compensation. I want to live my life freely and with security”, she said.
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History of the case
Bano was gang-raped on 3 March 2002 as she and her family fled from their home in search of a safer place during the riots. The truck in which they were hiding was stopped by a mob of 35-40 people, who massacred her family, leaving her as the lone survivor.
A day after the gang-rape, Bano filed a case at the nearest police station in Limkheda in Gujarat’s Dahot district, but the Judicial Magistrate soon closed the case citing “inconsistencies”.
She then approached the Supreme Court in 2003. It was only after the CBI intervened in 2004, at the apex court’s behest, that the 12 accused were arrested.
A special court on 21 January 2008 convicted and sentenced 11 accused (one accused died) to life imprisonment for raping Bano and murdering seven of her family members, while acquitting seven persons.
The Bombay High Court, where the case was shifted fearing harm to the witnesses in Gujarat, convicted the rest of the seven accused on 4 May 2017 — five policemen and two doctors — under IPC sections 218 (not performing their duties) and section 201 (tampering of evidence).
A convicted police officer, R.S. Bhagora, is currently serving as DCP traffic in Ahmedabad. He is likely to face a two-rank demotion before his retirement on 31 May 2019, as per the courts orders.
When asked if she was satisfied with the life sentence given to the 11 accused, Bano said, “My battle was never for revenge, but for justice”.
With inputs from PTI.
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Not just the apex court, the whole country stands with this brave, dignified lady.