How did India’s Supreme Court send Bilkis Bano’s rapists back to jail?
Al JazeeraModi’s government had helped set 11 convicted rapists free two years ago. India’s Supreme Court on Monday restored life prison sentences for 11 men who had raped a Muslim woman, Bilkis Bano, during the communal riots in Gujarat in 2002. The decision came after Bano and other petitioners challenged a decision by the Gujarat government, backed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, to set the convicted rapists free two years ago. In 2004, the accused were arrested as the Supreme Court ordered the trial to be transferred from Gujarat to the neighbouring state of Maharashtra after Bano alleged death threats from the accused. Give me back my right to live without fear and in peace.” Indeed, the Supreme Court found that authorities had violated another rule in setting the convicts free in its January 8 order, in which it ordered them to surrender to prison officials in Gujarat within two weeks.