Karnataka: Over 40,000 individuals from 29 Karnataka districts have signed a petition demanding justice for Bilkis Bano.
The memorandum, which is sent to the Chief Justice of India, requests that all 11 gang rapists and murderers in the Bilkis Bano case who are no longer in remission be returned to prison for life.
In conversation with the South First, Manohar Elavarathi, Karnataka General Secretary of Swaraj Abhiyan said that ‘Karnataka With Bilkis' campaign is a partnership of hundreds of organisations, including NGOs, women's groups, Dalit groups, slum welfare organisations, and sexual minorities. It was entirely carried out by volunteers.
The signature drive is merely the most recent in a string of agitations and protests the group has organised across Karnataka against the remitted sentences of Bilkis Bano's rapists and her family's murderers.
Madhu Bhushan who is a women’s rights activist with Gamana Mahila Samuha told the South First, “this was done completely on foot in almost all the districts of Karnataka. We didn’t use social media or campaigning portals. We didn’t use an online campaign for signatures, so we could have direct conversations and interactions with people.”
The 40,000-plus signatures on the letter indicate 40,000 unique conversations about the issue, each lasting between five and 30 minutes and many of which were documented.
The participants in these dialogues came from a variety of backgrounds, and they took place on public streets, in slum communities, malls, apartment buildings, and colleges, in front of mosques, churches, and temples, as well as at bus stops, metro stations, and auto stands.
“We spoke to a group of women and men regarding the issue. There was fear, confusion and anger in people. No Indian wants this. This is scary and beyond tolerable,” one campaign volunteer said, as reported by the South First. “How does it matter what religion she comes from or what caste the rapists come from? Does that justify the violence of rape that was done to her?”
The volunteers interacted with people from all walks of life, including auto drivers, construction workers, beedi workers, flower sellers, domestic workers, pourakarmikas, tribals in the forests, farmers in the villages, and urbanites in various towns and cities. They also spoke with activists and advocates, sex workers, students, government officials, men, women, and members of minority gender and sexual groups, as well as journalists and union members.
Bilkis Bano was gang raped by 11 men during the anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat in February 2002.
Bilkis, who was also pregnant at the time, had to witness the horrible murder of her three-year-old daughter as well as the gang rape of her mother, sister, and aunts, who were all among the 14 members of her family who were slain by a mob of 25 men. She only survived because the assailants assumed she was dead.
The 11 men were convicted by a trial court in Mumbai in 2008, and the High Court maintained the order granting them life imprisonment in May 2017.
On August 15 of this year, the BJP-controlled Gujarat government commuted the sentences of all 11 convicts.
The remission, which was based on the recommendations of a committee appointed by the Gujarat government and whose members justified their release by claiming to be "sanskari Brahmins," sparked massive protests by women's organisations and other civil society organisations across the nation.
