Delhi Bus Rapist Blames His Victim In Prison Interview

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One of the group of Indian men who were convicted for the notorious Delhi gang rape of 2012 has prompted outrage when he claimed that his victim was to blame for her brutal sexual assault and murder. UK Telegraph reports:

In an interview from jail, Mukesh Singh said that women who went out at night had only themselves to blame if they attracted the attention of gangs of male molesters. “A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy,” he said.

His victim, Jyoti Singh, 23, was returning from an evening at the cinema with a male friend when the six-strong gang offered them a lift in a mini-bus they were driving. She was raped and frenziedly beaten with iron bars, prompting widespread demonstrations for Indian women to have greater protection from sexual violence.

In an interview for a BBC documentary, Singh also claimed that had Jyoti and her friend not tried to fight back, the gang would not have inflicted the savage beating, which led her to die from her injuries two weeks later. Describing the killing 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, which BBC Four will air on its Storyville programme to coincide with International Womens’ Day this Sunday, will be seen by women’s rights groups as compelling evidence of the appalling attitudes shown by many Indian men towards women.