Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and his sympathisers will find it hard to dismiss Harish Salve as a ‘‘pseudo-secularist’’ whining over the riots. The former Solicitor-General defended Modi in the Supreme Court when he wanted early elections soon after the violence. And just this week, Salve was the counsel for the Modi government arguing against bail to the Godhra accused.But in a stinging rebuff to the Gujarat government, Salve has refused to appear for it against the National Human Rights Commission in the Best Bakery case which comes up in the Supreme Court on Friday.Instead, Salve has taken up the case of a 22-year-old woman called Bilkis Yakub Rasool, a case which NHRC chief Justice A S Anand referred to him and in which the Gujarat government was put on notice by the Supreme Court two days ago.‘‘I took up her case because it represents the failure of the system,’’ Salve told The Indian Express, ‘‘the failure of the police and of the courts in Gujarat.When Justice Anand asked me to appear in this matter, I went through the records and decided to fight this injustice.’’The records tell a horrifying story. Of how a woman, five months pregnant, was raped and saw 14 of her family killed, including her three-year-old daughter. And her two sisters, mother and two brothers. Of how the court closed her case without giving her a hearing— despite a senior police officer putting on record serious ‘‘shortcomings’’ in the investigation.What makes it more compelling is that these records aren’t NGO statements or lawyers’ arguments but official Gujarat police records culled out by the NHRC, in a brief, a copy of which is with The Indian Express.These records say: • On March 3, 2002, Bilkis, then five months pregnant, was on the run with 16 family members after violence broke out in their Singwad village in Dahod. n Eight women in the group, including Bilkis, were raped in a forest. Bilkis lost consciousness.• When she woke up, Bilkis found she was naked, injured and alone amid the bodies of her relatives. She spent the night in the forest and the next morning she came across a tribal woman who gave her a ghagra to wear.• She then walked up to the road from where she was taken in a police jeep to the Limkheda police station.• It was then that Bilkis lodged an FIR. The police conducted an inquest on March 5 with three independent witnesses who examined the crime scene and recovered seven bodies. The inquest report confirmed, in chilling detail, evidence of rape.• The next day, March 6, she named the accused in a statement recorded before a Godhra magistrate. On March 7, she lodged a second FIR naming three people who she says raped her.• On April 24, 2002, a forensic report confirmed that Bilkis was raped.• Yet, instead of arresting the persons accused by Bilkis and filing a chargesheet, the police submitted a final report to the court in January this year saying ‘‘the offence is true but undetected.’’• This despite the fact that in November 2002, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Limkheda division, R S Bhagora, pointed out serious ‘‘shortcomings’’ in the case papers. Bhagora noted that the forensic report confirmed Bilkis was raped and yet no medical examination was done of the accused she had named. ‘‘You are directed to take lawful steps against the accused after conducting detailed investigation into the offence.’’• That didn’t happen. Instead, the police filed a final report in January 2003 telling the court that ‘‘in the absence of any evidence and independent proof against the accused named in the complaint. no action has been taken.’’• The police claimed that Bilkis had given ‘‘contradictory statements.’’ And that in the first FIR she said she hadn’t been raped. However, in an interview to The Indian Express (see story), Bilkis claims that she did name names in the first FIR itself but the police didn’t record them. That she was raped was subsequently confirmed in the forensic report.• The police also disbelieved the names mentioned by her because they are ‘‘respectable persons in the village.’’• On March 25, 2003, the magistrate of Limkheda allowed the police to put Bilkis’s complaint in cold storage without giving her a hearing.Hence, a writ petition filed by Bilkis asked the Supreme Court to set aside the magistrate’s order and direct the CBI to investigate the case afresh. The petition also sought a direction to take action against the police officials found to have abused their powers.When the petition came up for hearing on Monday, Salve recalled the law laid down by the Supreme Court in 1996 that in cases of sexual molestation, minor contradictions or insignificant discrepancies should not be a ground for closing the investigation and that conviction can be founded on the sole testimony of the victim.
