The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Gujarat government to finish the disciplinary proceedings against police officials convicted by the High Court in the Gujarat riots Bilkis Bano case. A Bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said it will hear on April 23 Bano’s plea seeking enhanced compensation. She had been offered Rs 5 lakh compensation by the Gujarat government but she refused to accept it. The Gujarat high court had on May 4, 2017 convicted seven people — five policemen and two doctors — under sections 218 (not performing their duties) and section 201 (tampering of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Bilkis Bano, then 19 years old and five months pregnant was with her family and trying to get away from a mob on a truck when they attacked the truck. They gangraped her and killed 14 members of her family including her two year old daughter, mother and cousin. When she went to the police station to registered a case, they refused to do so and even threatened her. It was following that she approached the National Human Rights Commission and the Apex court, which asked the CBI to probe the matter. When she started receiving threats, she approached the SC once again , requesting that the case be shifted out of Gujarat. The SC ordered the case shifted to Maharashtra.
–India Legal Bureau
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