- The activists will march under the banner of ‘Hindu Muslim Ekta Samiti’ and cover the 180-kilometre distance between September 26 and October 4.
- We’re sure no woman would feel that men of their family are sanskari if they indulge in violating the modesty of other women: Activists
NE NEWS SERVICE
AHMEDABAD, SEP 16
Seeking justice for the gangrape victim Bilkis Bano and to protest the release of 11 convicts by Gujarat government, a group of social activists have decided to take out a nine-day padayatra from Randhikpur in Dahod district to Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad.
Social activist Sandeep Pandey and Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee working president and MLA Jignesh Mevani will participate in the padayatra along with 25 others, announced the organising committee member Kalim Siddique.
The activists will march under the banner of ‘Hindu Muslim Ekta Samiti’ and cover the 180-kilometre distance between September 26 and October 4..
Eleven convicts were released from a jail in Godhra on August 15 after they were granted remission by the Gujarat government.
“Some people in the Hindutva family are also justifying the act by claiming that a few of the rapists are Sanskari Brahmans. If rapists and murderers will be called ‘Sanskari,’ then we as a society have to rethink about the moral values and ethical standards necessary to be upheld for us to be called a civilised society. Besides Biliks Bano feeling cheated by the act of Gujarat government, what would be the feelings of women of family of convicts? We’re sure no woman would feel that men of their family are sanskari if they indulge in violating the modesty of other women,” the activists said.
The release of the convicts is a matter of shame in a country that is identified the world over for its spirituality and the values and virtues of Mahatma Gandhi, the group said in a release.
“It is a shame that Gujarat, which produced a global stalwart like Mahatma Gandhi, is silent today on people who have committed heinous crimes. Are we as a humanity going to defend the victims of violence and hate or not? Are we going to silently suffer the injustice being done to innocent people? What kind of society we aspire to build and live in?,” it added.
There was need to speak out “so that humanity survives, so that moral values and ethical standards are respected, so that innocent people feel safe and criminals are discouraged. We have to decide whether we feel any responsibility towards making our society more humane?,” the group said.
The padayatra was to tell Bilkis Bano that “we’re sorry” and to hope that such a fate does not befall anyone else.
Bilkis Bano was gang-raped and several of her kin were killed in the post-Godhra riots that took place in the state in 2002.
