Two BJP legislators on panel that backed remission in Bilkis Bano case

“We felt the convicts had already suffered enough and therefore they should be released prematurely,” says a member

BJP legislators C.K. Raolji and Suman Chauhan were the members of the committee headed by Godhra Collector and District Magistrate Sujal Mayatra that recommended remission of 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano gang rape and massacre case of the 2002 riots. 

The committee “unanimously” decided to recommend remission to the convicts who had already spent 14 years in jail since they were sentenced to life imprisonment in the heinous crime in 2008. 

The State government accepted the recommendation of the advisory committee and allowed the remission and premature release of the convicts who were released to a hero’s welcome by their relatives as well as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), as they were felicitated with garlands and sweets on coming out of the jail. 

“We felt that the convicts had already suffered enough and therefore they should be released prematurely,” said one of the members while refusing to divulge details of how many meetings were held and what aspects were considered while deciding on granting the remission. 

Godhra legislator Mr. Raolji is a seasoned politician who had defected to the ruling BJP in 2017 when Shankarsinh Vaghela split the Congress during the nail-biting Rajya Sabha polls of the late Congress leader Ahmed Patel. 

Also read | Gujarat followed old policy to release convicts in Bilkis Bano case 

A protege of Vaghela, Mr. Raolji, who served as a Cabinet Minister in the Vaghela government in the mid 1990s, was in the BJP and had walked out of the party along with Vaghela in 1996.