Before remission shock, convicts' transfer to Godhra jail had left Bilkis, kin dismayed

VADODARA: The remission of sentences and release of 11 people convicted in the 2002 Bilkis Bano gangrape and murder is not the first time that left many involved with the case including her husband Yakub Patel shocked.
The transfer of the convicts from Vadodara Central Jail in 2013 and later to the Godhra sub-jail had also dismayed them.
Patel said that the transfer should not have happened and they were unhappy about it. Much like the remission, Patel came to know about it only through others.
"We came to know about the transfer only when witnesses of the case and other people in the village told us. A witness even filed an RTI application to get details of the transfer," he said.
Those who had raised the issue are trying to dig up the application and the reply which they claimed was vague.
Patel said that after the release of the convicts, they were trying to gather documents for the future course of action. "We did not have any official intimation regarding the decision and are gathering details," he said.
After being convicted in the trial conducted by a sessions court in Mumbai in 2008, the 11 accused were kept in the Nashik jail. A division bench of the Mumbai high court heard a petition filed by one of the convicts and ordered in 2013 that those convicted in cases transferred to the state should be sent to jails in their respective states. Following this, the 11 convicts were sent to the Vadodara jail.
Mukhtar Sheikh an activist who had helped the riot victims including Bilkis said that ideally those serving life imprisonment were kept in central jails. "It seems that the accused in the case were given special treatment. Their presence in the village increased incidents of witnesses in the case being threatened regarding which applications were made to the police," he said.
The frequent visits of convicts to the Singvad village to which Bilkis and most of the witnesses belong were also questioned in a representation by one of the witnesses. The representation had claimed that the convicts were moving around freely in the village. An application regarding threats was also made by another witness, and in another incident, an offence was registered against three persons including two convicts. In-charge superintendent of Godhra sub-jail M N Rathwa could not be reached for a comment.