NEW DELHI: A minister from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party has said rapes happen “accidentally” in the latest controversial remarks by a politician, amid renewed outrage over attacks against women.
Ramsevak Paikra, the home minister of central Chhattisgarh state who is responsible for law and order, said late on Saturday that rapes did not happen on purpose.
“Such incidents (rapes) do not happen deliberately. These kind of incidents happen accidentally,” Paikra, of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which also rules at the national level, told reporters.
Paikra, who was asked for his thoughts on the gang-rape and lynching of two girls in a neighbouring state, later said he had been misquoted. His original remarks were broadcast on television networks.
The remarks come just days after the home minister of the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh state said rapes were “sometimes right, sometimes wrong”.
The minister, Babulal Gaur, gave the remarks on Thursday amid growing anger over the gang-rape and murder of the girls, aged 12 and 14, in northern Uttar Pradesh state late last month.
Modi, whose party came to power in a landslide election victory, has so far stayed silent over the rapes.
India brought in tougher laws last year against sexual offenders after the fatal gang-rape of a student in New Delhi in December 2012, but they have failed to stem the tide of violence against women across the country.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, already under fire over his handling of the gang-rape of the girls, accused their families of coming under the influence of a rival political party.
Yadav also hinted that his government had taped phone calls between the families and a politician from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
“We have phone records of a BSP MLA (member of the state legislative assembly) ... The BSP asked them (the families) to return the compensation offered by the state,” Yadav told the Hindustan Times in an interview published yesterday.
AFP
