Bilkis Bano rape case: Release of convicts ‘insult to humankind,’ says BJP leader Khushbu

“A woman who is raped, assaulted, brutalised and her soul scarred for life must get justice. No man who has been involved in it should go free. If he does so, it’s an insult to humankind and womanhood. #BilkisBano or any woman, needs support, beyond politics n ideologies. Period,” Khusbhu tweeted.

A woman who is raped, assaulted, brutalised and her soul scarred for life must get justice. No man who has been involved in it should go free. If he does so, it’s an insult to humankind and womanhood. #BilkisBano or any woman, needs support, beyond politics n ideologies. Period.

— KhushbuSundar (@khushsundar) August 24, 2022

Khusbhu is the second BJP leader to have condemned the release and felicitation of the convicts. Earlier on Tuesday, Maharashtra Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis said it was wrong to honour the convicts in the Bilkis Bano case who were recently released from prison.

The Gujarat government on August 15 released 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano murder and gangrape case of 2002 under its remission and premature release policy after one of the convicts, Radheshyam Shah, moved the Supreme Court. Shah, who had been sentenced to life imprisonment by a CBI court in Mumbai in 2008, had completed 15 years and 4 months in jail. Bilkis was gangraped and her three-year-old daughter Saleha was among 14 killed by a mob on March 3, 2002, in Limkheda taluka of Dahod district. Bilkis was pregnant at the time.

The Supreme Court said it would look into a request to take up for urgent hearing, petitions challenging the remission granted to the convicts on Thursday.