Dec 16 gang rape: Convict blames victim

 

New Delhi, March 2, 2015: In a shocking comment, one of the convicts of the December 16, 2012 gang rape on a moving bus in Delhi, has blamed the 23-year-old woman for the fatal sexual assault on her.

Mukesh Singh, one of the convicts in the gang rape case said women who go out at night had only themselves to blame if they attracted the attention of molesters.

In an interview from jail for a BBC documentary to be aired on March 8, Mukesh Singh said: "A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy."

He was quoted as saying by British daily The Telegraph that had the victim and her male friend not tried to fight back, the gang would not have resorted to a savage beating.

Describing the gruesome incident as an "accident", he said: "When being raped, she shouldn’t fight back. She should just be silent and allow the rape. Then they’d have dropped her off after ’doing her’, and only hit the boy."

The interview will be aired by BBC Four on its Storyville programme "India’s Daughter" on Sunday to coincide with the International Women’s Day.

The physiotherapy student was raped and assaulted with an iron rod after she was tricked into boarding an unregistered private bus to go home after watching a movie with a male friend.

Her male companion was badly beaten up and could not come to her rescue while the assault was being carried out in the bus. The two were later dumped naked and bleeding on the roadside.

The woman died 13 days after the attack from the injuries inflicted upon her after being airlifted to a Singapore hospital for treatment.

The attack sparked widespread protests and a campaign by civil society groups for tougher laws to protect women against sexual violence.

One of the attackers was found dead in jail in March 2013. A juvenile member of the gang was sentenced to three years in a reform home.

Four attackers, including Mukesh Singh, were convicted and sentenced to death last year. Judge Yogesh Khanna said the victim was "tortured till the very end" and the case fell into the "rarest of rare category", which justified capital punishment.

The Supreme Court has stayed the death sentences, considering appeals filed by the four men. Mukesh Singh, who was 26 at the time of the attack, was driving the bus.

"You can’t clap with one hand - it takes two hands," he was quoted as saying in the interview. "A decent girl won’t roam around at 9 o’clock at night. A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy. Boy and girl are not equal. Housework and housekeeping is for girls, not roaming in discos and bars at night, doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes. About 20 per cent of girls are good."

He also claimed that executing him and the other convicted rapists will endanger future rape victims.