A Muslim woman gang-raped during 2002 religious riots in the Indian state of Gujarat voiced hope on Sunday that thousands of fellow victims would finally see justice after her case was shifted to another location to ensure a fair trial.
Bilqis Bano Yaqub Rasool, who says she watched 14 of her family members including her three-year-old daughter killed, claimed victory after a decision on Friday by India's Supreme Court to move her case to the neighbouring state of Maharashtra.
Bilqis has publicly come forward as the only adult witness to a massacre on March 3, 2002, in Randhikpur village. She said a Hindu mob gang raped her and killed 14 of her relatives, including two women who were raped, as they tried to escape.
Police did not press charges until Bilqis went public and approached India's National Human Rights Commission. Twenty suspects now face trial.
Bilqis said she was scared of intimidation if the trial took place in Gujarat, whose ruling Hindu nationalists were accused of abetting the riots in which some 2,000 people died.
"The transfer of my case outside Gujarat has restored my faith in the national legal justice system. I had lost that faith two years ago when my neighbours turned their backs on me," Bilqis told a news conference in Gujarat's commercial capital Ahmedabad.
"I am not just fighting this case for myself, but also for other Muslim women on whom sexual violence was perpetrated and used as a weapon," said Bilqis, whose was accompanied by her one-year-old daughter and husband.
"I know I am not the only one. There are many women out there whose names and faces I do not know but whose pain I can feel," said Bilqis, who lifted her veil while speaking.
Human rights groups say thousands of women were raped during the Gujarat riots, which broke out after an allegedly Muslim mob torched a train carrying Hindu activists, killing 59 people.
India's new left-leaning government, which defeated allies of the Gujarat government in a May election upset, has pledged a more vigorous prosecution of Gujarat riot cases.
In April, the Supreme Court ordered the retrial in Maharashtra of 21 Hindus acquitted of killing 12 Muslims in an arson attack during the Gujarat riots after witness Zaheera Sheikh said she was forced to retract testimony due to threats by Hindu hard-liners.
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