Bilkis Bano case: Supreme Court dismisses 11 convicts’ plea seeking additional time to surrender

Satya Prakash

New Delhi, January 19

The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed applications filed by 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano case seeking additional time to surrender.

“The reasons cited by applicants to seek postponement of surrender and report back to jail have no merit inasmuch as those reasons in no way prevent them from complying with our directions,” a Bench led by Justice NV Nagarathna said, dismissing their pleas. The Bench had on January 8 quashed the remission granted to them by the Gujarat Government and ordered them to surrender before the jail authorities concerned in two weeks.

After Friday’s order, all 11 convicts — Jaswant Nai, Govind Nai, Shailesh Bhatt, Radheshyam Bhagwandas Shah, Bipin Chandra Joshi, Kesarbhai Vohania, Pradeep Mordhiya, Bakabhai Vohania, Rajubhai Soni, Mitesh Bhatt and Ramesh Chandana — will now have to surrender by January 22.

Bilkis Bano, pregnant at the time of crime, was gang-raped and her three-year-old daughter Saleha and 13 others were killed by a mob on March 3, 2002, in Dahod during violence that broke out in Gujarat after the Sabarmati Express was attacked in Godhra and 59 ‘kar sevaks’, were burnt to death.