'She Should Just Be Silent and Allow the Rape'

NEW DELHI: One of the men convicted of raping and killing a woman in a brutal 2012 gang attack on a New Delhi bus said in a TV documentary that if their victim had not fought back she would not have been killed.

Instead, the 23-year-old woman should have remained silent, said Mukesh Singh, who was driving the bus for much of the time that the woman was being attacked.

"Then they would have dropped her off after 'doing her,'" he said in a documentary being released next week. The filmmakers released transcripts of the interview, which was recorded in 2013, on Tuesday.

"A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy," he said, according to the transcripts. "A decent girl won't roam around at 9 o'clock at night .... Housework and housekeeping is for girls, not roaming in discos and bars at night doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes."

The woman and her friend were returning home from seeing a movie at an upscale mall when they were tricked by the men into getting on the bus, which they'd taken out for a joyride. The attackers beat her friend and took turns raping the woman. They penetrated her with a rod, leaving severe internal injuries that caused her death.

Singh and three other men were convicted in a fast-track court in 2013. They confessed to the attack but later retracted their confessions, saying they'd been tortured into admitting their involvement. The appeals against their death sentences are pending in the Supreme Court.

India, where many people have long believed that women are responsible for rape, was shocked into action after the attack. The government rushed legislation doubling prison terms for rapists to 20 years and criminalizing voyeurism, stalking and the trafficking of women. The law also makes it a crime for police officers to refuse to open cases when complaints are made.

In the interview, Singh suggested that the attack was to teach the woman and her male friend a lesson that they should not have been out late at night. He also reiterated that rape victims should not fight back: "She should just be silent and allow the rape."

The death penalty, he said, would make things even more dangerous for women. "Now when they rape, they won't leave the girl like we did. They will kill her," Singh said.

Singh's interview is from the documentary "India's Daughter" by British filmmaker Leslee Udwin. It will be shown on March 8, International Women's Day, in India, Britain, Denmark, Sweden and several other countries.

Indian authorities, meanwhile, objected to the filmmakers releasing the documentary without their approval.

A spokesman for New Delhi's Tihar Jail, where the interview was filmed, said Udwin had agreed to allow them to screen the footage before it was released. Udwin could not be immediately reached for comment.

"We want to see the documentary as it can be screened only after it was approved by authorities," said jail spokesman Mukesh Prasad.