Release Of Rapists: Bilkis Bano’s Lawyer Fears Every Convict Will Now Apply For Remission

New Delhi: Bilkis Bano was extremely disappointed after 11 men convicted of raping her and killing some family members in 2002 were released from jail under the Gujarat government’s remission policy.

She appealed for this ‘harm’ to be ‘undone’, and her ‘right to live’ be returned.

On Thursday, Bilkis’ lawyer Shobha Gupta also spoke out against the state government’s decision, saying that every rape and murder convict will now apply for remission.

“I think every rape and murder convict will apply for remission after 14 years. If a remission can be granted in this case, then why won’t every single rape convict ask for remission?” she observed.

The decision, she felt, comes across as a ‘non-application of mind on the grossness of the crime’.

Gupta added that remission is bad in law and is not a matter of right.

The 1992 policy, under which the release of convicts was granted, does not exist anymore, she said.

Bilkis, then 19, was pregnant when she was gang-raped by men she had known for years. She saw her family members, including her three-year-old daughter, being murdered in March 2002.

A special CBI court in Mumbai convicted 11 people in January 2008 on various charges including conspiracy to rape a pregnant woman, murder, unlawful assembly under different sections of IPC.