New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) seems to be maintaining a studied silence on the controversial remission of the life sentences of 11 convicts in the 2002 Bilkis Bano case.
The Arvind Kejriwal-led party, which is seeking to expand its footprints in poll-bound Gujarat, is disinclined to speak on the issue as it may amount to walking into an electoral landmine in a state known for polarisation along communal lines, multiple AAP functionaries told ThePrint.
Bano was gang-raped, and according to the prosecution, 14 members of her family — including her three-year-old daughter Saleha — killed by a mob in Gujarat’s Randhikpur village, when they were fleeing during the Godhra riots in March 2002. Bano was 19, and five months pregnant at the time.
Eleven people convicted in the case, all serving life sentences, were released from Godhra jail Monday — 15 August — after a government panel in the BJP-led state approved their application for remission.
The release of the convicts has triggered nationwide outrage, with political parties — with the exception of the BJP and the AAP — condemning the move.
Delhi CM and AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal is yet to comment on the matter, either on social media or during public interactions.
ThePrint reached senior AAP leader and Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia in person for a comment Thursday, but he refused to talk on the issue.
AAP spokesperson and member of the party’s political affairs committee, Durgesh Pathak, told ThePrint on the sidelines of a press conference in Delhi Thursday that the release “seems like a wrong thing” but added that “we need to further study the details of the matter, as in how exactly those 11 convicts were released — the legalities and technicalities”.
The AAP’s stance on the case is similar to its strategy on the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests at Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh in 2019-2020.
According to party leaders, although the AAP claims to be a secular party, it usually chooses to take a nuanced or ambiguous stand on matters concerning Muslims, to avoid being tagged as a “Muslim-appeasing party” by the BJP.
This is also why senior party leaders chose to stay away from riot-affected areas of Delhi’s Jahangirpuri earlier this year, when trouble erupted during a Hindu procession on the occasion of Hanuman Jayanti in April, said party functionaries.
On Wednesday, in what is being seen as veiled criticism of the AAP, senior Congress leader Pawan Khera asked why “some sections of the opposition” were “silent” on the release of the convicts in the Bilkis Bano case.
At a press conference, he said: “Why are parties that entered politics making ‘Nirbhaya’ the base silent today? Do they only exist to garner votes?”
Sanjay Kumar of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), said the “opposition parties should speak up on the issue, but for the AAP there is an immense amount of risk in this”.
“After all, it is all about perception. Taking an aggressive stand on the matter can end up creating a mass perception that the AAP is into Muslim appeasement and upset Hindu voters in the state,” he added. “At this point, it seems to be the main reason behind AAP’s silence on the issue.”
Pathak said “one thing can be said for sure that such cases are very sensitive in nature and when the court has given an order, the court’s instructions should be strictly followed by the state government”.
“When the court has held them (the convicts) guilty, their release by the current Gujarat government seems like a wrong thing,” he added.
Also read: ‘Our hearts sank’ — Bilkis Bano’s husband talks of safety fears as rape-murder convicts set free
AAP’s justification
A senior AAP leader who did not wish to be identified said the party’s “campaign in Gujarat is centred around development and welfare issues”.
“This is the model we have followed in Punjab, where we stood victorious earlier this year, and we have been following in other states. We are trying to stay away from communal politics,” the leader added. “The BJP is our main opponent in the state, but attacking them on the issue of release of convicts can backfire for the AAP.”
A second senior functionary in the party added that a large chunk of the AAP’s support base in Gujarat comprised people who were ideologically aligned to the BJP, but had turned against the party over issues such as unemployment, lack of development in specific areas, and price rise.
“The AAP taking a stand against the BJP’s move on the Bilkis Bano matter can upset a large chunk of such voters. As a party, we are against the decision, but we are not sure whether it is the right thing to publicly take a stand on at this point,” the functionary said.
Gujarat goes to the polls later this year and the AAP is heavily invested in campaigning in the state.
The BJP, which has been in power in Gujarat for six consecutive terms now, has also been silent so far on the matter of the convicts’ release.
In March this year, one of the convicts in the Bilkis Bano case, Radheshyam Bhagwandas Shah, had approached the Supreme Court seeking a direction to the Gujarat government to consider his application for premature release. He had pointed out that as of 1 April this year, the convicts had already spent 15 years and four months in jail.
In response, the Gujarat government told the court that since the trial in this case concluded in Maharashtra, his application for premature release needs to be filed before the Maharashtra government.
However, in a judgment passed on 13 May this year, a Supreme Court bench comprising justices Ajay Rastogi and Vikram Nath ruled that since the crime was committed in Gujarat, the trial would’ve ordinarily been conducted in Gujarat, and it is thus the Gujarat government that should consider the application of the convicts.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
Also read: Victimisation, bad mahaul, Hindu-Muslim bond: Bilkis convicts try to push claims of innocence