"I can breathe again. This is what justice feels like," said Bilkis Bano, in a statement on Monday, 8 January, after the Supreme Court quashed the 2022 Gujarat government order granting early release of 11 convicts in her case.
The statement, issued through her lawyer Shobha Gupta, quoted Bano saying:
"Today is truly the New Year for me. I have wept tears of relief. I have smiled for the first time in over a year and half. I have hugged my children. It feels like a stone the size of a mountain has been lifted from my chest, and I can breathe again. This is what justice feels like."
Directing the 11 convicts to report to jail authorities within two weeks, a apex court bench, led by Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan, noted that the Gujarat government was "not competent" to pass the remission order.
'Felt Exhausted... Until a Million Solidarities Came My Way'
Bano thanked the apex court for giving not just her children and her, but all women "this vindication and hope in the promise of equal justice for all."
In her statement, she also thanked those who have stood in her support and said,
“I have said before, and I say again today, journeys like mine can never be made alone. I have had my husband and my children by my side. I have had my friends who have given me so much love at a time of such hate, and held my hand at each difficult turn. I have had an extraordinary lawyer, advocate Shobha Gupta, who has walked with me unwaveringly for over 20 long years, and who never allowed me to lose hope in the idea of justice.”Bilkis Bano in her statement issued through her lawyer
On 15 August 2022, the Gujarat government granted remission and released eleven men, sentenced to life for the gang rape of then 21-year-old Bano, and the murder of seven of her family members during the 2002 Gujarat riots.
Reliving the moments after she heard about the remission order, Bilkis said, "I simply collapsed."
"I felt I had exhausted my reservoir of courage. Until a million solidarities came my way," Bilkis said.
However, Bilkis said that thousands of people and woman stood in support of her, which gave her the courage to fight back.
"They stood with me, spoke for me, and filed PIL petitions in the Supreme Court. 6,000 people from all over, and 8500 people from Mumbai wrote appeals; 10,000 people wrote an Open Letter, as did 40,000 people from 29 districts of Karnataka. To each of these people, my gratitude for your precious solidarity and strength. You gave me the will to struggle, to rescue the idea of justice not just for me, but for every woman in India. I thank you."
"Even as I absorb the full meaning of this verdict for my own life, and for my children’s lives, the dua that emerges from my heart today is simple – the rule of law, above all else and equality before law, for all," Bano concluded in her statement.
While pronouncing the verdict, the apex court stated that the government to decide the remission is the state within whose jurisdiction the accused were sentenced, and not the state within whose territory the offence was committed.
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