India’s Top Court to hear petition seeking to reverse release of gang convicted in raping Muslim woman

India’s Supreme Court will hold a hearing on a petition challenging the release last week of 11 Hindu men convicted of the gang rape of a pregnant Muslim woman during riots in 2002 in the western state of Gujarat.

Dozens of women in Mumbai protested on Tuesday, August 23 against the release and carried placards demanding justice for the victim, who said last week she had not been told the men would be freed and that it had shaken her faith in justice.

The petition has been brought by a group of women according to Indian politician and lawyers, Kapil Sibal. Sibal told Reuters the court had agreed to hear their Public Interest Litigation petition demanding the men serve their full life sentences. No date has yet been set for the hearing.

Critics contend that freeing the convicts contradicts the government’s stated policy of supporting women in a country with numerous, well-documented instances of violence against them.

A senior Gujarat state official overseeing the release said the convicts had completed 14 years in jail and were allowed free after the Supreme Court directed authorities to consider their plea for leniency under a 1992 remission policy.

Current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was Gujarat’s chief minister at the time of the riots and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party continues to rule the state.