A Prayer For Bilkis Bano

India celebrated 75 years of independence on August 15th 2022. And the eleven men convicted in the Bilkis Bano gang-rape case walked free that day.

I was horrified by this case as much as I was about the Nirbhaya gang rape case and I find it distressing to come across so many people who aren’t as concerned about Bilkis Bano as they were about Nirbhaya. Or who don’t know about it because the news channels they watch focus on other things. Or who wish to stay silent.

I write this post to make an appeal to all of you my readers, to pray for Bilkis Bano and her family. I ask all of you to keep them in your thoughts for a little while every day. Every moment you can give Bilkis Bano counts.

Many of you may not know much about this case, and I don’t follow it carefully enough to comment on it. So I’ll put links to some news channels that have covered it below.

Editorial with Sujit Nair : The Remission of 11 Convicts In Bilkis Bano Rape Case

Asked if they are going to seek legal redress, Mr Rasul said, “We are still in shock and don’t know whether we will question it”. “We have no legal papers and don’t know much right now. We are still in shock. What happened with us is complete injustice,” he added.

A quote from a post by NDTV “We are very scared Bilkis Bano’s husband on release of 11 convicts”

The story so far: As India celebrated the 75th anniversary of Independence on Monday, 11 men sentenced to life imprisonment for the gang rape of Bilkis Yakub Rasool and the murder of seven of her family members during the 2002 Gujarat riots were released from jail in Godhra. As the 11 convicts, who walked out of the prison after 15 years, were welcomed with sweets and garlands, the Gujarat government said it relied on its old remission policy of 1992 to approve their applications for remission of the sentence and not the current policy of 2014.

A quote from a post by The Hindu “Explained the remission laws that paved the way for release of the bilkis bano case convicts”

Correction – There was a typo in my introduction so I’ve corrected it.

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Please like, share this post, and think about the implications of this topic on the safety of all women in India. I won’t approve discussions in the comments, because they could turn political and I don’t have the ability to handle those kinds of discussions. They take me way out of my zone of comfort and also out of my level of competence.

But I do ask you to comment if you intend to pray for Bilkis Bano and her family every day or whenever you can. And I’d really appreciate it if you post a ‘Yes I’ll pray Bilkis Bano and her family’ in the comments below.