The Gujarat police, on Monday, foiled an attempted march—by several activists who had planned to walk “in solidarity with Bilkis Bano”—from Randhikpur to Ahmedabad. Bano was gangraped, and seven of her family members were killed, in 2002 in the post-Godhra riots violence.
The 180-km march, planned against the Gujarat government remitting the life sentence of 11 of the convicts in Bano’s rape case, under the banner of “Apologizing to Bilkis Bano” and “Hindu-Muslim Ekta” was supposed to begin at Bano’s village Randhikpur.
To begin with, the Panchmahal police detained most of the activists on Sunday night in Godhra. They were reportedly kept at different locations throughout the day and were released in the evening close to Mahisagar district border. Many of them were detained again there, on the grounds that they didn’t have the requisite permission to take out the march.
Some of the detained activists were Ramon Magsaysay award recipient professor Sandeep Pandey, Noorjahan Diwan, Hanif Kalandar, T Gopal Krishna, and Kaleem Siddiqui.
According to Diwan, they were picked up by Godhra police on Sunday night and were taken to a B-division police station. As the news of their detention was made public through social media, a large crowd gathered outside the station demanding their release. The police were then forced to move them to another station.
Despite repeated attempts, Panchmahal Superintendent of Police Himanshu Solanki didn’t respond to calls or messages. Godhra Range Deputy Inspector General M S Bharada told DH that he was not aware of the situation as he was in Gandhinagar.
Meanwhile, local police officials maintained that the permission to take out the march was denied in view of the “law and order” problem. The activists couldn’t enter Bano’s village either due to large-scale police presence, who were screening the entrants.
Siddiqui, who lives in Ahmedabad, told DH: “The Panchmahal police dropped us on a bridge bordering Mahisagar district. As we started our “padyatra”, a police team from the district was already there waiting for us. They detained (Sandeep) Pandey ji. They are not letting us take out the march.”
Condemning the police action, the Hindu-Muslim Ekta Samiti, in a statement, said that the march was organised to “apologise to Bilkis Bano as Gujarat government released 11 convicts under its remission policy”.
“These convicts were serving life sentence for gangraping Bano and murdering seven of her family members,” the statement read.
The remission is under challenge in the Supreme Court.
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