India: Rape victim aghast at attackers' release

A Muslim woman who was gang-raped when pregnant during communal violence in India in 2002 has issued a statement via her lawyers criticizing the Gujarat state government for releasing her attackers earlier this week. 

Bilkis Bano, who is now in her 40s, was the only person in a group of 17 Muslims to survive the attacks. Seven of her relatives, including her then 3-year-old daughter, were killed.

She said in the statement that her attackers' release left her "bereft of words. I am still numb." 

"How can justice for a woman end like this? I trusted the highest courts in our land," Bano said in a letter published late on Wednesday, adding that authorities had not reached out to her before releasing the men. "Please undo this harm. Give me back my right to live without fear and in peace." 

A group of women also protested in New Delhi against the men's release. Maimoon Mollah of the All India Democratic Women's Association told the Associated Press news agency that they were demanding the state roll back its decision. 

"Bilkis and other survivors should be allowed to live in peace and dignity," Mollah said. 

The 2002 Gujarat attacks have an additional political significance in India, given that current Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the state at the time of the attacks.

How did authorities in Gujarat explain the release? 

Gujarat's state government, run by Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), defended the decision to release the men by saying that they had served India's most common life imprisonment term of 14 years, among other factors. 

"The remission of the 11 convicts was considered after taking various factors like life imprisonment term in India which is typically of 14 years or more, age, behavior of the person and so on," senior Gujarat official Raj Kumar was quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times. 

According to Kumar, the men were eligible for release on this basis thanks to a 1992 remission policy that was in effect when they were convicted but that became defunct in 2014. Now, rape and murder are among crimes for which remission after 14 years is no longer granted to people serving a life sentence. 

The announcement of the men's release also coincided with celebrations of India's 75th anniversary of independence from colonial Britain. 

PM Modi led Gujarat state at time of the attacks

In the western state of Gujarat in 2002, the deaths of 59 Hindu pilgrims in a train fire sparked communal violence and riots targeting Muslims. 

The train fire was blamed on a Muslim mob, and dozens were later convicted for it, though its cause remains disputed. 

According to the official tally, about 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were hacked, beaten, shot or burned to death in the riots that followed. 

The riots — some of the worst communal violence in India since its independence — took place while Modi was the state's chief minister. The Hindu nationalist faced allegations of turning a blind eye to the violence, and was even refused a US visa in 2005. 

But Modi always argued that he was not complicit and did not turn a blind eye. In 2012, around a year before he was named candidate for national leader, the Indian Supreme Court declared he did not have a case to answer. 

Opposition politicians continued to pressure the government over the decision. 

The Congress Party's Rahul Gandhi, grandson of former premier Indira Gandhi, asked what message the men's release sent to women in India: "Prime Minister, the whole country is seeing the difference between your words and your deeds," he wrote on Twitter. 

msh/aw (AFP, AP)