Almost an hour after the Upper House expunged the names of the victims of the Bhandara rape incident from its proceedings, the Home Ministry circulated the text of Shinde's statement to media houses through a press release, apparently unaware of the Rajya Sabha development.
Subsequently, the Home Minister's entire statement was uploaded on the official website of Government of India's Press Information Bureau. However, the press release was withdrawn after an hour and it was removed from the PIB website too.
Earlier, Shinde, in a written statement read out by him named the three sisters who were allegedly raped and murdered recently in Bhandara in Maharashtra.
The names had to be expunged at the intervention of the Leader of the Opposition Arun Jaitley who said as per law the victims of rape, that too minors, are not identified and named and their identity should be kept a secret as per Supreme Court guidelines.