Ahmedabad:
The Gujarat High Court on Friday granted 10 days' parole to Bilkis Bano case convict Ramesh Chandana to attend his cousin's wedding scheduled for March 5.
Chandana, who moved the Supreme Court for parole last week, is the second convict in the case to be released on parole after all 11 convicts in the case surrendered at a jail in Godhra city on January 21 following an order from the Supreme Court.
They were convicted in a case of gang rape of Bilkis Bano and murder of seven of her family members during the 2002 Godhra riots.
By this application, the convict-applicant prays for parole on the grounds of attending the marriage ceremony of his sister's son. Taking into account the grounds stated in this application, the applicant-accused is ordered to be released on parole. for a period of ten days,” Justice Divyesh Joshi said in his order issued on Friday.
According to the Gujarat government's statement before the Supreme Court, Chandana had been granted 1,198 days of parole and 378 days of leave since his incarceration in 2008.
Earlier, Pradip Modhiya, another convict in the case, was released on parole from Godhra jail from February 7 to 11 after the Supreme Court granted his plea for anticipatory release.
In August 2022, 11 convicts serving life sentences were released prematurely from prison after the state government accepted their remission requests in accordance with the 1992 policy, citing their 'good conduct' while in prison.
The Supreme Court on January 8 quashed the remission of sentences of all 11 convicts and ruled that the state government had no jurisdiction to grant premature release to the convicts as the trial in the 2002 case was taking place in Maharashtra.
The Supreme Court then ordered the convicts, who were released from Godhra district jail on Independence Day 2022 after spending 14 years in jail, to return to jail within two weeks.
On January 21, they surrendered to Godhra jail authorities.
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