One of the six convicts in the 2012 Delhi gangrape of 23-year-old physiotherapy intern on a moving bus reportedly claimed that the victim was far more responsible than him for her rape.
The convict, Mukesh Singh, went on to say that they would not have assaulted Nirbhaya brutally, if she and her friend had remained submissive. He blamed the victim and said "a girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy," BBC Four quoted him as saying in a prison interview.
"You can't clap with one hand – it takes two hands... 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 said.
Singh further described Nirbhaya's murder as "accident," saying if she had allowed him and other five to rape her silently, she would have survived. "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," he said.
While talking about his death sentence, Singh claimed that the death penalty will prove wrong for the rape victims and not the rapists as he will prefer killing his victim rather than leaving her alive and ultimately landing behind bars.
"The death penalty will make things even more dangerous for girls... Before, they would rape and say, 'Leave her, she won't tell anyone.' Now when they rape, especially the criminal types, they will just kill the girl. Death," he said.
These were the thoughts of a rapist and a murderer, but what the lawyer, who defended the convicts of Nirbhaya gang rape case, has to say about the incident came as shocking to many. The lawyer, AP Singh, said he would have burnt her daughter or sister alive if found engaged in "pre-marital activities".
"If my daughter or sister engaged in pre-marital activities and disgraced herself and allowed herself to lose face and character by doing such things, I would most certainly take this sort of sister or daughter to my farmhouse, and in front of my entire family, I would put petrol on her and set her alight," the lawyer said.
This interview will be aired under the title India's Daughter" by BBC Four on its documentary strand Storyville at 10pm on International Womens' Day that falls on 8 March.
