India court overrules early release of 11 men in Bilkis Bano gang rape case

Bano was five months pregnant when she was gang-raped during the 2002 anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat state.

India’s Supreme Court has quashed the remission given to 11 Hindu men who had been jailed for life for the gang rape of Bilkis Bano and murdering her relatives during anti-Muslim riots in the western state of Gujarat in 2002.

The top court on Monday directed the 11 men to surrender to prison authorities within two weeks. “Their plea for protection of their liberty is rejected,” it said.

Bilkis Bano, now in her 40s, was five months pregnant when she was gang-raped during the violence, which saw nearly 2,000 people, most of them Muslims, killed in some of the worst religious riots India has experienced.

Seven of her relatives were killed in the riots, including her three-year-old daughter, whose head was smashed on the ground by the perpetrators in Gujarat’s Dahod district.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was Gujarat’s chief minister at the time, and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) still rules the state.