- Title: INDIA-RAPE/DOCUMENTARY India bans bus rape documentary
- Date: 4th March 2015
- Summary: NEW DELHI, INDIA (FILE- DECEMBER, 2012) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) PEOPLE PROTESTING AT RAISINA HILLS AGAINST DELHI GANG RAPE VARIOUS OF CROWD SHOUTING SLOGANS
- Embargoed: 19th March 2015 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: India
- Country: India
- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVA8WGPME8X2436CITKLZ6XK7S31
- Story Text: India's home minister said on Wednesday (March 4) he would investigate how a film crew managed to interview a death row convict who expressed no remorse for his part in the fatal gang rape of a woman in New Delhi in 2012, an attack that sparked outrage.
Leslee Udwin's "India's Daughter" features conversations with Mukesh Singh and fellow convicts who raped and tortured a 23-year-old woman on a moving bus in December 2012.
Six men lured the young medical trainee and her male friend onto the buss the pair was on their way home after watching a movie at a shopping mall in south Delhi.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh said the documentary would not be aired in India and accused its makers of violating "permission conditions" by not showing the complete unedited footage to jail officials.
"The government has taken necessary legal action and obtained a restraining order from the court disseminating the contents of the film. Our government condemns the incident of 16 December, 2012 in the strongest possible terms and will not allow any attempt by any individual, group or organisation to leverage such unfortunate incidents for commercial benefits," Singh told lawmakers in parliament.
Comments released to the media this week showed that in the film, Mukesh blames the victim for the crime and resisting rape. He also says women are more responsible than men for rape.
"You can't clap with one hand - it takes two hands," he says in the film, according to a statement by the filmmakers.
"A decent girl won't roam around at nine o'clock at night. A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy ... Housework and housekeeping is for girls, not roaming in discos and bars at night doing wrong things. About 20 percent of girls are good."
Late on Tuesday, the home minister directed Delhi police to obtain a court order prohibiting the film's release. Police said the ban was imposed as Mukesh's comments created an atmosphere of "fear and tension" and risked fuelling public anger.
Udwin, a rape victim herself, said she made the documentary because of the levels of the protest that erupted in India after the attack.
"Now what got me to do that documentary was the protests. The extraordinary, inspiring, momentous expression of determination to see change by all of you, ordinary men and women out on the streets and the media support and the media understanding that their cries had to be heard as loudly as possible," the filmmaker said.
In a written statement released after the documentary was banned in India, Udwin said:
"I urge (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi to deal with this unceremonious silencing of the film," she wrote in the statement published by Indian channel NDTV, which was to have aired the documentary on March 8, International Women's Day.
NDTV also reproduced letters showing Udwin had obtained permission from the home ministry prior to carrying out the interviews, and had the consent of Mukesh in Tihar jail.
Udwin told reporters on Tuesday she had given jail officials a chance to sit through hours of unedited footage, but they did not do so. Officials later approved a pared-down version, she said.
The British filmmaker, who worked on the film for two years and was inspired to make it after watching thousands of people take to the streets across India in protest over the 2012 rape, said it would be released worldwide as planned.
Four men including Mukesh were sentenced to death for the crime, but their execution was later stayed on appeal by India's Supreme Court.
The victim's father said Singh should be hanged at the earliest.
"We need to think what is prompting him to say such things. In a way he is telling the country that daughters should not be sent to schools and instead be restricted indoors. Recently the government also launched a scheme called 'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao' (Save the Daughter, Teach the Daughter)," he said.
The lawyer for two of the convicts in Delhi gang rape case, A.P. Singh, said he disagreed with his client's comments that women in Indian society need to maintain some decorum.
"As far as Mukesh's comments about the victim are concerned, I don't agree with them but whatever he has said about the public at large is very important and something that the society needs to take note of, I appreciate that," said A.P. Singh.
The Chair of National Commission for Women (NCW), Barkha Shukla, said such statements could embolden criminals in the society.
"This is very shameful and unfortunate that a convict who is on a death row, who is responsible for a rape which shook the entire nation, has the courage to say things like this. I would like to request the judiciary and the government that he should be hanged immediately," said Shukla.
The incident led to nationwide protests and forced authorities to tighten laws on sex crimes. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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