Eleven men serving life imprisonment for gang rape and murders during the 2002 Gujarat riots have been freed in India.
According to an article published in New York Times, the convicts in what came to be known as the Bilkis Bano case were freed from jail in Gujarat’s Godhra town after the state government approved their application for remission of sentence.
It said that the case of Bilkis Bano, a Muslim woman who was raped and her three-year-old daughter killed by a Hindu mob, is a tragic reflection of India’s halting progress in addressing violence against women and of the deepening divides engendered by swelling Hindu nationalism.
The article further said that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the top official in Gujarat at the time of the 2002 sectarian violence. Then as now, he is accused by critics of fanning and exploiting the country’s religious polarization to consolidate the Hindu base of his Bharatiya Janata Party.
Source: Radio Pakistan