By Bilkis Yakub Rasool Bano
Today I stand before you vindicated. For my truth has been heard. For 20 days I was cross-examined in a courtroom in Mumbai and the courage of my truth saw me through. On Friday January 18, 2008 the Honorable Sessions Judge in Mumbai pronounced a judgement that has finally meant some closure to a long and very painful journey that was forced upon me and my family. Of course, many wounds will never heal but I am stronger today, and for that I am thankful.
I owe much of this victory to a large number of friends and supporters who stayed with me and held me when I faltered and felt I could not go on any more. Many of these friends are with me here today but many are not. My husband, Yakub, has been an unstinting source of support right through. Members of my family and my community were forced out of their homes because they stood by me. I stand here today on the basis of their courage and their willingness to testify on my behalf even when the odds were so against them. I also owe this victory to the NHRC, which believed in me, to Senior Counsel Harish Salve who made sure that the learned Judges of the Supreme Court heard my cries for justice and got the CBI to investigate the case and then had it transferred to Mumbai. Finally, this case would not have reached the conclusion it has without the manner in which the CBI undertook its re-investigation, and to the CBI Special Public Prosecutor, R.K. Shah who uncovered the truth from under layers of lies and institutional cover-ups. To each one of these people I am grateful. Journeys like mine cannot be made alone.
For the last six years I have lived in fear, shuttling from one temporary home to the other, carrying my children with me, trying to protect them from the hatred that I know still exist in the hearts and minds of so many people. This judgement does not mean the end of hatred but it does mean that somewhere, somehow justice can prevail. This judgement is a victory not only for me but for all those innocent Muslims who were massacred and all those women whose bodies were violated only because, like me, they were Muslim. It is a victory because now, hereafter no one can deny what happened to women in Gujarat in those terrible days and nights of 2002. Because now it will forever be imprinted on the historical record of Gujarat that sexual violence was used a weapon against us. I pray that the people of Gujarat will some day be unable to live with the stigma of that violence and hatred, and will root it out from the very soil of a State that still remains my home.
But today I am also sad because mine is just one case, one among the thousands of cases that have not even reached a courtroom. And while I have won today, I still say loud and clear that the path to justice cannot and must not be so long and torturous. I am also angry because once again, the State and its officials who emboldened, encouraged, and protected the criminals who destroyed the life of my entire community, still remain free and unblemished. It was their job to protect me. The battle I have won today gives me strength for the much larger and perhaps longer struggle, which lies ahead.
