SC’s ‘exemplary’ direction has reaffirmed my faith in judiciary: Bano

PTI

New Delhi

Bilkis Bano, who was gang-raped during the 2002 Gujarat riots Wednesday said the Supreme Court’s “exemplary” direction to the state government to provide Rs 50 lakh compensation has reaffirmed her faith in judiciary and will give hope to other victims of rape and communal violence.

Bano however lamented that her family did not get any support from the state government during their 17-year-long fight for justice. The Supreme Court Tuesday directed the Gujarat government to give Rs 50 lakh compensation, a job and an accommodation to Bano. The top court also directed the state government to pay the compensation to Bano within two weeks.

Seven of Bano’s family members were also killed during the riots.

“The Supreme Court’s direction to Gujarat government has reaffirmed by faith in judiciary and the Constitution,” she said.

Expressing gratitude to the judiciary for “acknowledging her suffering and struggle,” Bano said she will create a fund in the memory of her first child Saleha so that it can help other women survivors of communal violence in their journeys to justice.

Saleha was brutally killed by a mob during the riots.

“The apex court understood my pain, my suffering and my struggle to regain the constitutional rights that were lost to me in the violence of 2002.

“No citizen should have to suffer at the hands of the state whose duty is to protect us,” said Bano, who has been leading almost a nomadic life due to safety concerns for many years.

She said she could not even give a proper burial to her daughter Saleha, an feeling which has always haunted her.

“My daughter Saleha’s body was lost in the tide of hatred that swept over Gujarat in 2002. There is no grave for Saleha that I could visit and weep upon.

“But her spirit has been with me. I know she is up there, somewhere, and through helping others, she will live on in the lives of other children,” she said.

Bano said her elder daughter (16) who was in her womb during the 2002 violence wants to be a lawyer to fight for justice for others.

When asked if she was satisfied with the life sentence given to 11 convicted in her case, Bano said her “battle was never for revenge, but for justice”.

Bano who cast her vote in Devgadh Baria village on Tuesday said that the apex court’s “exemplary” direction will give hope to other victims of rape and communal violence.

According to the prosecution, on March 3, 2002 Bilkis Bano’s family was attacked by a mob at Randhikpur village near Ahmedabad in the aftermath of the Godhra riots.

Bilkis, five months pregnant at that time, was gang raped and some members of her family killed. The trial in the case initially began in Ahmedabad.

However, after Bano expressed apprehensions that the witnesses could be harmed and the CBI evidence tampered with, the apex court transferred the case to Mumbai in August 2004.