‘I can breathe again’: Bilkis Bano feels relieved after SC judgement

"Today is truly the New Year for me. I have wept tears of relief. I smiled for the first time in over a year and half. I have hugged my children," she said

Shortly of the Supreme Court quashed the remission granted to convicts in Bilkis Bano case, the survivor has finally has a ‘reason to smile’. Bilkis, who was gang-raped while pregnant and witnessed the massacre of her family members, including her toddler daughter during the notorious 2002 Gujarat riots.

The Gujarat government has remitted the sentences of the convicts and released them on August 15, 2022.

According to a report by Indian Express, an emotional Bilkis said, “This is what justice feels like.”

“Today is truly the New Year for me. I have wept tears of relief. I 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. I thank the honourable Supreme Court of India for giving me, my children and women everywhere, this vindication and hope in the promise of equal justice for all,” Bilkis’s statement read.

Expressing immense gratitude to her advocate Shobha Gupta who stood beside Bilkis like a rock in her journey to justice, Bilkis said, “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.”

She thanked her family and friends who refused to let her fall. “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.”

Thanking the thousands of people, including women from different societal hierarchies, Bilkis said, “A year and half ago, on August 15, 2022, when those who had destroyed my family and terrorised my very existence were given an early release, I simply collapsed. I felt I had exhausted my reservoir of courage. Until a million solidarities came my way. Thousands of ordinary people and women of India came forward. They stood with me, spoke for me, and filed PIL petitions in the Supreme Court. Six thousand people from all over, and 8,500 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.”

And lastly, Bilkis concluded her statement by stating that justice was served. “Even as I absorb the full meaning of this verdict for my own life, and for my children’s lives, the dua (prayer) that emerges from my heart today is simple – the rule of law, above all else and equality before law, for all.”

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