Guwahati: The Supreme Court ordered the Gujarat government to respond to a petition contesting the release of the 11 defendants in the Bilkis Bano case on Thursday.
The petitioners were instructed to name the prisoners who have been granted remission as parties in the case by a bench led by Chief Justice N V Ramana. The matter will be heard after two weeks.
The bench had already decided to hear the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) that contested the remission on August 23.
The petition was filed by the members of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Subhashini Ali, journalist Revati Laul, and social activist and professor Roop Rekha Verma.
On August 15, the Gujarati government approved the release of all 11 of the case’s defendants from the Godhra sub-jail under its policy of remission.
In 2008, a special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in Mumbai gave the case’s defendants a life sentence. They had been accused of killing seven members of Bano’s family and raping Bano in a group. The Bombay High Court later upheld their conviction.
It should be mentioned that on March 3, 2002, a mob attacked Bilkis Bano’s family in Randhikpur hamlet in Limkheda taluka of Dahod district during the post-Gujarat riots. Bano was five months pregnant at the time of the gang rape. Seven members of her family were also slaughtered in front of her.