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Staying away from the media strobes, she overcame fear, and with exemplary tenacity refused to give up. On January 21, a Mumbai court awarded life sentences to 11 persons who sexually assaulted Bilkis Bano in March 2002. She had witnessed 13 of her relatives being burnt alive and her daughter being murdered, while she, her mother and sister were sexually assaulted. The court’s verdict was a victory not only for her but also a blow for all those who were killed and violated in Gujarat. Shiv Kumar reports the extraordinary case of Bilkis Bano
More than five years after the post-Godhra riots of 2002, where thousands of Muslims were injured, raped or brutally murdered by mobs belonging to the Hindutva groups, justice has been slow in coming for the victims. As the sting operation conducted by Tehelka magazine showed last year, members of the law-enforcement agencies, prosecuting officers and leading lights of the sangh parivar of Gujarat were all hand-in-glove in coercing the victims of the riots into withdrawing cases against their assailants. Bilkis Bano, alias Bilkis Yakub Rasool, then a 21-year-old village girl from Dahod district, was not spared either. She was six months pregnant when she was assaulted by people from her own village. Bilkis Bano had to suffer the loss of several of her relatives and her daughter was also brutally killed by the assailants. Thirteen of her relatives were burnt alive, while her mother and sister along with herself were stripped and gang raped. Eight of them are still declared missing.
Though there are scores of women who were defeated by the combined force of executive and political might, Bilkis Bano chose to fight it out with support from non-government organisations and prominent lawyers. "I was constantly threatened as were my relatives while the CBI was investigating the case," says Bano. Consequently, she and her lawyers decided that the case should be tried outside Gujarat. Thanks to support from secular-minded organisations, the Supreme Court was moved two years ago to hold a retrial in the Bilkis Bano under a Mumbai court. Earlier, a Gujarat court had let off Bilkis Bano’s assailants giving credence to the theory that the prosecution and the defense collaborated to deny justice to this poor woman.
As per the fresh case filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation before Mumbai Sessions Judge, U D Salvi, Gujarat’s policemen intimidated Bilkis Bano and falsified evidence to favour the accused. Five policemen were accused of trying to destroy evidence by dumping salt on the remains of Bilkis Bano’s relatives so that the bodies could decompose faster. Two doctors, a husband and wife couple, were also in the dock for issuing fake medical certificates to help the accused. Though only one policeman was found guilty of falsifying evidence, his colleagues and the doctors have been discharged. Bilkis Bano’s case would have been buried like so many other riot cases in Gujarat were it not for some social activists led by Delhi-based activist Farah Naqvi who came across the woman in a relief camp shortly after the post-Godhra riots. They were joined by Gagan Sethi, who heads an NGO called Jan Vikas, who pursued the case and ensured that it came up for trial in Gujarat. Subsequently when the complicity of the Gujarat authorities with Bilkis Bano’s assailants became clear, the group persuaded New Delhi-based lawyer Harish Salve to take up the case. The case really got moving after Salve approached the Supreme Court to transfer the case out of Gujarat. The apex court chose Mumbai and the trial has been held in camera for nearly four years. Despite the victory, Bilkis Bano is not a free woman. She is living in hiding afraid that relatives of her attackers may seek revenge for implicating them in the case. "I will never return to my village. All our belongings were either burnt down or looted, our cattle whisked away and our house burnt down," Bilkis Bano told reporters in New Delhi shortly after the verdict. Though 11 people have been convicted in the case (one of the accused died during the course of the trial), Bano is not happy as so many people getting acquitted. "I will fight till those doctors and others discharged are also convicted," Bano said in Delhi. Life was not bad for Bilkis Bano, her husband Yakub and other relatives before the 2002 riots. The family owned a plot of land and 16 head of cattle which they used to sell milk to people in the village. "They burnt down my house and drove away our cattle. Only the land is left barren," she says. Bilkis Bano who has two children now says she would like to educate her children. She and her family are considerably poor living a nomadic life. "We will have to settle down somewhere and do something to earn a living," says Bilkis Bano.
The post-Godhra riots of Gujarat where Muslims were systematically targeted are symbolised by two women, Bilkis Bano and Zaheera Shaikh. While the former stayed away from the media spotlight while her team of lawyers and activists quietly worked the legal system to ensure justice, Zaheera Shaikh was in the media limelight right from the beginning. The then 18-year-old attracted controversy in the Best Bakery case after it transpired that Zaheera was won over by supporters of her assailants. Zaheera Shaikh went on to turn hostile in court which resulted in her being sent to jail for contempt of court for a year. Zaheera Shaikh is free now after being released from jail after serving about nine months in prison. She is said to have returned to Ahmedabad, though not to the same locality where she lived earlier. While the Muslim community at large today looks at Bilkis Bano as a woman of character who refused to be swayed either by coercion or greed, Zaheera seems to have lost her credibility though she was as much a victim as Bilkis Bano.
Justice eludes Gujarat’s Muslims
More than five years after the post-Godhra riots that forced thousands of Muslims across Gujarat to leave their homes, justice still continues to elude them. Thanks to the support of non-government organisations, many of the Muslims have persevered in pursuing cases filed against their attackers in the face of an unresponsive administration. However the small victories scored by them continue to egg them on and torment their assailants as well. Across Gujarat, scores of hoodlums who were lured by money, liquor and prospects of pillage, are cooling their heels in jail with their leaders enjoying the spoils of office. However, their former victims find no solace since the Hindus in the villages do not let them come back. "Our people have been warned of a repeat of 2002 if they dared to come back," says Dr Shakeel Ahmed, of the Islamic Relief Committee attached to the Jamaat-i-Islami. Muslims have had to leave their villages and live in new communities that have sprung up all over Gujarat. These communities are bereft of civic amenities as no politician wants to be seen cultivating a minority constituency. Neighborhoods like Juhapura, Ramol, Sarkhej, etc on the outskirts of Ahmedabad house a large number of Muslims who were driven out of their homes in surrounding villages. "Despite being reduced to penury, the community has had to buy land to house all the refugees," says Dr Ahmed. "It is not a home, just a shelter since huge families have had to make do with a tiny room with a bathroom and kitchen attached," he adds. "Very few Muslims returned to their homes after the riots," says Maulana Hafeez Basheer who oversees the functioning of the Madninagar complex at Ramol. Hindu neighbours have asked the Muslims to withdraw police complaints filed against rioters and sign humiliating agreements to live in peace as a pre-condition for their return. The complex houses 296 families displaced from surrounding villages like Naroda Patiya which saw the worst rioting in 2002. This reporter visited the Ognej village on the outskirts of Ahmedabad where burnt shells of Muslim-owned houses still remain untouched. Across Gujarat, debris of demolished mosques remain a mute testimony of the carnage. But none of these mattered to Gujarat’s politicians who have been wooing the Hindu majority voters in the two elections since 2002.
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Bilkis
After the mob left
Bilkis for dead, she hid in a cave for two days before she approached
a tribal hamlet pretending to be a Hindu woman who had been raped by
Muslims. At the police station where she was taken to register a
complaint, the policemen refused to write the names of her assailants.
Subsequently, she was sent to the Godhra relief camp where she was
reunited with her husband.
