Senior BJP leader and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Uma Bharti on Tuesday said that no mercy should be shown to Mukesh Singh, one of the accused involved in the gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman on the night of December 16, 2012.
Reacting strongly to Mukesh's interview and statement to the BBC in which he defended his action, and said that girls and women should be confined to their homes and do household chores rather than going out to discos, movies and bars, Bharti said, "There should not be any mercy for him. Why was he allowed to give the interview in the first place?"
"He is a rapist and a murderer and he should be hanged. I can't comment on how this interview was taken," she added.
Earlier, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had denounced statements made by Mukesh Singh, adding that the perpetrator's 'mindset' has betrayed the reason why he committed the crime.
"The accused still does not believe he is guilty and the punishment which was given to him is completely justified. The decision taken by the court is correct," said BJP leader Meenakshi Lekhi.
"His mindset shows the reason due to which he has done this crime. The matter of security is being looked into, in order to see how the interview was conducted. I am sure the government has already started to look into the matter," she added.
While speaking to BBC Four from his cell in an interview that appears in 'India's Daughter', a BBC Storyville documentary, Mukesh Singh, one of the five accused convicted of raping and murdering Nirbhaya, said that a girl is 'far more responsible for rape' than a boy.
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He said housework and housekeeping was the domain of girls and they had no rights to roam or visit discos and bars at night.
"They are doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes," he said, and added that only '20 percent' of the girls were good.
He showed no remorse for the attack, which he referred to as an 'accident'.
Singh has been handed down the death penalty and has always denied taking part in the attack.
However, he said that the rape was the 23-year-old student's fault, adding that she might still be alive today had she not 'fought back'.
Singh added that executing him and the other convicts in the case will further endanger rape victims as now, when girls are raped, they will not leave the victim 'like we did' but will kill her.
The two lawyers, who were defending the men, also took part in the interview and shared their client's views, blaming the victim.
