San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Release of rapists assailed at rallies held across India
Hundreds of people held demonstrations Saturday in several parts of India to protest a recent government decision to free 11 men who had been jailed for life for gangraping a Muslim woman during India’s devastating 2002 religious riots.
The protesters in the country’s capital, New Delhi, demanded the government in the western state of Gujarat rescind the decision. Similar protests were also held in other states.
The 11 men, released on suspended sentences on Aug. 15 when India celebrated 75 years of independence, were convicted in 2008 of rape, murder and unlawful assembly.
The victim, who is now in her 40s, recently said the decision by the Gujarat state government has left her numb and shaken her faith in justice.
The victim was pregnant when she was brutally gangraped in communal violence in 2002 in Gujarat, which saw more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, killed in some of the worst religious riots India has experienced since its independence from Britain in 1947. Seven members of the woman’s family, including her 3-year-old daughter, were also killed in the violence.
Officials in Gujarat, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party holds power, have said that the convicts’ application for remission was granted because they had completed more than 14 years in jail. The men were eligible under a 1992 remission policy that was in effect at the time of their conviction, officials said. A newer version of the policy adopted in 2014 by the federal government prohibits remission release for those convicted of certain crimes, including rape and murder.