CPI(M) strongly condemned Gujarat Govt remission of life sentence given to gangrapists and killers of 2002 genocide in the Bilkis Bano case.
This is the real face of New India— convicted killers and rapists released. Activist Teesta who fought for justice was jailed., CPM said in a press release.
Eleven convicts serving life imprisonment in the gangrape case were freed from Godhra sub-jail on Monday after a Gujarat government panel approved their application for remission of sentence, according to senior officials.
In May this year, the Supreme Court had asked the Gujarat government to decide, within two months, an application filed by one of the men found guilty in the Bilkis Bano gangrape case from 2002 post-Godhra riots. The convict had sought “premature” release from prison, where he had spent more than 14 years following conviction in January 2008.
By an order dated May 13, 2022, a bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and Vikram Nath clarified that the government of Gujarat, where the offence was committed, and not Maharashtra, where the trial was shifted “in exceptional circumstances…for limited purpose for trial and disposal”, was the “appropriate government” to decide convict Radheshyam Bhagwandas Shah’s prayer for premature release as per applicable remission policy.