New Delhi: In a shocking incident, one of the 11 rapists of Bilkis Bano was seen sharing the stage with a Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) MP in Dahod, Gujarat during an event. Shailesh Chimanlal Bhatt was seen on stage with Dahod MP Jasvant Sinh Bhabhor.
Reacting to this, TMC Mahua Moitra trained guns at the BJP. She took to Twitter and said she wanted to see these rapists behind bars and the incumbent government out of power.
“Bilkis Bano's Rapist Shares Stage With Gujarat's BJP MP, MLA. I want to see these monsters back in jail & the key thrown away. And I want this satanic government that applauds this travesty of justice voted out. I want India to reclaim her moral compass,” she tweeted.
The event took place on March 25 in Karmadi Village of Dahod district. Dahod MP Jasvant Sinh Bhabhor and his brother, Limkheda MLA Shailesh Bhabhor tweeted photos from the spot that showed Shailesh Chimanlal Bhatt on stage with them. Bhatt was seen posing with them during the puja.
Notably, the 11 men convicted in the case walked out of the Godhra sub-jail on August 15 last year after the Gujarat government allowed their release under its remission policy. They had completed more than 15 years in jail.
Furthermore, last week on Wednesday, the Supreme Court agreed to constitute a special bench to hear a plea by Bilkis Bano, who was gang-raped during the 2002 Gujarat riots, against the remission of the sentence of 11 convicts. The convicts had gang-raped Bilkis Bano and murdered her family members during the 2002 Godhra riots. A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala assured Bano, represented through her lawyer Shobha Gupta, that the new bench will be formed.
Gupta mentioned the matter for urgent hearing and said that a new bench needs to be constituted. "I will have a bench constituted. Will look at it this evening," the CJI said, as quoted by the news agency PTI.
On January 24 this year, the hearing on Bano's plea challenging the remission of sentence of 11 convicts in the gang-rape case by the Gujarat government could not be held in the top court as the judges concerned were hearing a matter related to passive euthanasia as part of a five-judge Constitution bench.
Besides the plea challenging the release of the convicts, the gang-rape survivor had also filed a separate petition seeking a review of the apex court's May 13, 2022 order on a plea by a convict. Seven members of Bilkis Bano's family were also killed during the 2002 Gujarat riots.