Bilkis Bano case: Convict moves Gujarat HC for parole to attend niece's wedding
Ahmedabad, Feb 17: A convict in the case related to the gangrape of Bilkis Bano and the murder of seven of her family members during the 2002 Godhra riots has moved the Gujarat High Court seeking parole to attend a wedding in his family.
Rameshbhai Chandana approached the high court on Friday with a plea to be released on parole to attend his niece's wedding.
Chandana and 10 others were sent back to jail last month after the Supreme Court struck down the remission granted to them by the Gujarat government.
Earlier, Pradip Modhiya, another convict in the case, was released from the Godhra district jail on parole from February 7 to 11 after the high court allowed his plea.
Chandana's lawyer Khushbu Vyas told Justice Divyesh Joshi that his client wished to attend his niece's wedding on March 5.
The court then directed the registry "to place the matter before the appropriate court (for hearing)".
As per the Gujarat government's affidavit before the Supreme Court, Chandana had enjoyed parole for 1,198 days and a furlough of 378 days since his incarceration in 2008.
In August 2022, 11 convicts serving a life sentence were granted premature release from jail after the state government accepted their remission applications in keeping with its 1992 policy, citing their 'good conduct' during imprisonment.
The Supreme Court had last month quashed the remission of sentence of all 11 convicts.
The apex court quashed the remission order on January 8, ruling that the state government lacked jurisdiction to grant premature release to the convicts, as the trial in the 2002 case was held in Maharashtra.
The Supreme Court then ordered the convicts, who were released from Godhra district jail on Independence Day in 2022 after being in prison for 14 years, to return to jail within two weeks. They surrendered before the Godhra jail authorities on January 21.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
