New Delhi: Eleven convicts jailed for gang-rapes and multiple murders during the 2002 Gujarat riots and whose premature release from jail was overturned by the Supreme Court surrendered before the Godhra jail authorities late last night.

Radheshyam Shah, Jaswant Nai, Govind Nai, Kesar Vohania, Baka Vohania, Raju Soni, Ramesh Chandana, Shailesh Bhatt, Bipin Joshi, Pradip Modhiya, and Mitesh Bhatt were accused of gang-raping a pregnant Bilkis Bano, along with members of her family. They also killed as many as 14 members of her family, including her three-year-old daughter.

On August 15, 2022, the Gujarat government – following a nod from the Union home ministry under Amit Shah who was Gujarat home minister in 2002 – granted the 11 remission of their sentences. They were welcomed with garlands and a Bharatiya Janata Party leader said they were "good sanskaari Brahmins."

Several women activists and politicians, including Bilkis Bano herself, challenged the decision at the Supreme Court which held the remission illegal and said that the Gujarat government did not have the authority to grant it. On January 8, the court had given them two weeks' time to surrender, meaning that time would be up on January 22.

The convicts all requested extensions of the deadline by which the apex court had stipulated they must return to jail. Among reasons cited were ageing parents, children being of marriageable-age, and standing crops, among others. The court turned them down.

Indian Express has reported that they turned themselves in after arriving in a 10-seater vehicle and an SUV car. They made this journey from Singwad in Dahod district to the Godhra sub-jail in Panchmahal district and that Gujarat police had said that they had been tracked and escorted thus.

Reports in the immediate aftermath of the Supreme Court's quashing verdict had said that they had been missing. Police then claimed they had been under watch.

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