Justice (retired) U D Salvi, who had sentenced 11 men to life imprisonment in 2008 for the gangrape of Bilkis Bano and murder of her family members during the 2002 Gujarat riots, said Thursday that “the one who suffers knows it better”.
The 11 convicts were freed from jail Monday after a Gujarat government panel approved their application for remission of sentence. Presiding over the trial, Justice Salvi, then special judge in the Mumbai City Civil and Sessions Court, had convicted the men, while observing that Bilkis’s deposition was “courageous”.
Meanwhile, at 1,201 cases, Mumbai on Thursday recorded the highest single-day Covid surge since June 30. The tally over the last 24 hours saw a 23 per cent jump from 975 cases logged the previous day. Along with the surge in fresh infections, the financial capital also saw two Covid-related deaths over the last 24 hours.
One of the deceased patients was 87 years of age and was suffering from an ischemic heart disease. The other was a 72-year-old man who had several comorbidities such as ischemic heart disease, diabetes, chronic kidney ailment and hypertension.