The Supreme Court on Friday ordered the Gujarat government to complete disciplinary action against police officers the Bombay High Court had convicted in the 2002 Bilkis Bano gangrape case.
Eleven men had raped Bilkis Bano during the 2002 Gujarat riots. Bano was 19 years old and pregnant at the time. Fourteen members of her family, including her three-year-old, were murdered by the rioters near Ahmedabad.
The Bombay High Court had also convicted five police personnel for not performing their duties and for tampering of evidence during the investigation into Bano’s gangrape.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said it will hear Bano’s plea for enhanced compensation on April 23, PTI reported. Bano told the bench she does not accept the Rs 5 lakh compensation the Gujarat government has offered.
In July 2017, the Supreme Court had dismissed the appeals of two doctors and four policemen against their conviction by the High Court. “You all have been unreasonably acquitted by the trial court in the case despite there being clear-cut evidence against you,” the Supreme Court had told the convicts.
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