BRS MLC Kavitha slams BJP after party leaders share stage with Bilkis Bano rape case convict

New Delhi [India], March 27 : Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLC K Kavitha on Monday slammed Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after party's MP Jaswantsinh Bhabhor and his brother Shaileshbhai Bhabhor, the MLA from Limkheda shared a stage with Shailesh Bhatt - one of the 11 men convicted for raping Bilkis Bano during the 2002 Gujarat riots and released on parole by the Gujarat government.
Both Jaswantsinh and Shaileshbhai tweeted pictures of the launch of a Gujarat Water Supply and Sewerage Board (GWSSB) project in Karmadi village in Singvad taluka of Dahod district.
Kavitha tweeted," Bilkis Bano Rapist openly shares the stage with BJP's MPs and MLAs. What have we become as a community that perpetrators of heinous crimes against women are being celebrated and given a platform while the victims plead for justice? India is watching!"
While TMC MP Mahua Moitra said, "Bilkis Bano's Rapist Shares Stage With Gujarat's BJP MP, MLA. I want to see these monsters back in jail and the key is thrown away. And I want this satanic government that applauds this travesty of justice voted out. I want India to reclaim her moral compass."
The Gujarat government released the 11 convicts, who were sentenced to life imprisonment, on August 15. All the 11 life-term convicts in the case were released as per the remission policy prevalent in Gujarat at the time of their conviction in 2008.
In March 2002 during the post-Godhra riots, Bano was gang-raped and left to die with 14 members of her family, including her three-year-old daughter. She was five months pregnant when rioters attacked her family in Vadodara.