The convicts being taken to the Mumbai court for the hearing on Monday. (PTI)

New Delhi, Jan. 21: Aged by torture and tragedy, Bilkis Yakub Rasool is a contrast to the doe-eyed, innocent-looking Zahira Sheikh in many ways.

Zahira, the face of the Best Bakery massacre, kept changing her testimony amid allegations of bribery. She failed to nail the killers in the Gujarat riots’ highest-profile case and angered the court enough to be jailed for contempt.

The soft-spoken but determined Bilkis never wavered in her six-year fight for justice for the eight family members slain by a mob of 25-30 and the six who went missing.

Since the tragedy six years ago, the woman in her early 30s has single-handedly got the Supreme Court to get the CBI to reinvestigate the case and move the trial outside Gujarat. She did it while being on the run.

Today, before flashbulbs at the press club here, she was clear about what the judgment — 12 accused were convicted on her sole testimony — meant.

It was a victory not only for her but also for all those “innocent Muslims who were massacred and all those women whose bodies were violated only because, like me, they were Muslim”, she said in Hindi.

“It is a victory because no one can now deny what happened to women in Gujarat… because now it will for ever be imprinted on the historical record of Gujarat that sexual violence was used as a weapon against us,” a translated version of her statement said.

Gujarat, she said, was still her home. “Someday, the people of Gujarat will be unable to live with the stigma of that violence and hatred and will root it out from the very soil of a state that still remains my home,” she hoped.

She urged the Narendra Modi government to ensure her family’s security. “I and my family members are still living in fear. It is the duty of the Gujarat government to ensure our safety.”

Bilkis broke down as she narrated how she was gang-raped despite being pregnant and left for dead, how the mob killed her four-year-old daughter. She also spoke of drawing strength from her husband, Yakub, and their child.

Bilkis Bano during the news conference in Delhi. Picture by Ramakant Kushwaha

“For the last six years, I have lived in fear, running from one temporary home to the other, carrying my children with me, trying to protect them from the hatred that I know still exists in the hearts and minds of so many people,” she said.

“This judgment does not mean the end of hatred but it does mean that somewhere, somehow justice can prevail.”

Bilkis made it clear she would not leave the task unfinished. “I will file an appeal against the acquittal of the policemen and the doctors if the CBI does not,” she said.

Six police officers and a doctor couple were accused of suppressing and destroying evidence but were acquitted.

About Zahira, she had this to say: “She hurt the fight of the innocent victims of the Gujarat riots and brought a bad name to the community.”