The CBI today arrested 12 persons in connection with the alleged rape of Bilkis Yakub Rasool and the killing of 15 persons in Randhikpur village of Dahod district on March 3, 2002, following the Godhra carnage. The arrests were made by a special team of the CBI from Mumbai which raided the houses of the accused during the night and whisked them to the Circuit House in Devgadh Baria in the wee hours. Those arrested are Ramesh Chandana, former PA of Limkheda BJP MLA Jaswant Bhabhor who was a minister in the Modi government, and a VHP functionary of Dahod district, Sailesh Bhatt. Despite several attempts, Bhabhor was not available for comment. VHP leaders who had gathered at the court premises alleged that Bhatt was being dragged into the case for ‘‘communal reasons’’. The plight of Bilkis, allegedly gangraped while she was five months pregnant and fleeing rioters, was first highlighted by The Indian Express. She lost at least 13 relatives in the attack by the mob, including her three-year-old daughter, two sisters, her mother and two brothers. The Gujarat police had closed her case despite a forensic report confirming rape, citing contradictions in her statement. On September 8, following Bilkis’s petition seeking a CBI probe, the Supreme Court had issued notices to the Gujarat government and its Home Department, and asked the state police to ‘‘keep off’’ her. Later, on December 16, it had directed the CBI to re-investigate the case and file a status report within eight weeks. Reports from Limkheda said that as soon as news of today’s arrests spread, about 300-odd activists of the VHP gathered on the court premises shouting slogans in support of Bhatt, who is the organising secretary of its Dahod unit. Police were present in large numbers to prevent any untoward incident. Apart from Chandana and Bhatt, others who have been arrested are Mitesh Bhatt, Rajesh Soni, Jaswant Navi, Govind Navi, Kesar Khima, Baka Khima, Radheshyam Shah alias Lala Vakil, Bipin Joshi alias Lala Doctor, Naresh Moria and Pradeep Moria. All the accused are residents of Randhikpur. Bilkis had named Jaswant Navi, Govind Navi and Naresh Moria as her rapists and the CBI had subsequently booked them. CBI sources said the team which made the arrests had been camping in Devgadh baria for the past 20 days and had visited the spot where the assault reportedly took place. The team, led by Superintendent of Police B.N. Jha, reconstructed the incident and found there was no discrepancy with the statements given by Bilkis. Investigations into the case were handed over to the CBI in December last year, more than 20 months after the post-Godhra riots. The ‘‘discrepancy’’ the Gujarat police mentioned in court, seeking closure of the case, was that in her first statement on March 4, 2002, Bilkis had said she was not raped as she was pregnant. But the medical examination on March 7 had revealed that she had been raped. She has also given a second statement before the magistrate in Godhra civil hospital saying she had been raped and explaining her initial denials a result of the shock she was under. In her statement, Bilkis said she and her family had fled their village after the train carnage and initially taken shelter in the house of Bijal Damor in Chungadhi village, 6 km from Randhikpur. However, when he asked them to leave, they had started out for Chappadvaad village, where they had encountered a rampaging mob. She alleged that the mob had slaughtered those with her, gangraped her and two other women, and left her unconscious. The dead included Bilkis’s three-year-old daughter Saleha and the two-day-old baby girl of another woman, Shamim.
