NEW DELHI: India’s Supreme Court on Monday ordered 11 convicts in the gang-rape of a Muslim woman during the 2002 Gujarat state communal carnage to be sent back to jail.
The top court quashed the Gujarat government’s decision to grant remission to the Hindu men who were jailed for raping Bilkis Bano and murdering her relatives, including her three-year-old daughter.
Bano was 21 years old and five months pregnant when she was subjected to the horrific crime during the conflagration in which more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed.
She has won widespread admiration for her struggle to seek justice from the courts.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) administration freed the convicts in August 2022. -Bernama