Bilkis Bano casts vote with her husband in Gujarat's Dahod LS seat

Dahod: Gujarat communal riots victim Bilkis Bano on Tuesday cast her vote along with her husband in Devgadh Baria town under Dahod Lok Sabha constituency.

Bano flashed her ink-marked finger after coming out of the polling station in Kapdi locality with her husband Yakub Rasul.

Voting was held for 25 out of 26 constituencies in Gujarat in the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections.

The Bharatiya Janata Party has renominated Dahod MP Jasvantsinh Bhabhor who is pitted against Prabha Kishor Taviad of Congress.

Bano was 21 years old and five months pregnant when she was gang-raped while fleeing the horror of the communal riots that broke out in Gujarat after the Godhra train-burning incident in February 2002. Her three-year-old daughter was killed along with six members of her family.

In its January 8 verdict, the Supreme Court quashed the remission granted to the 11 convicts and ordered that they be sent back to jail within two weeks. They later surrendered and are currently lodged in the Godhra sub-jail.

Earlier, the Gujarat government's decision to grant remission to all 11 convicts on August 15, 2022, created a political firestorm.

Excoriating the Gujarat government, the apex court had said in its verdict that the state "usurped" the power of the Maharashtra government to grant remission to the convicts.