Documentary on 2012 Delhi gang rape banned in India

Rahul Bedi, in New Delhi

India has banned a documentary by a British film-maker on the gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman in New Delhi in 2012, citing concerns over comments in it by one of the four convicted rapists.

Amid a furore in parliament, India's federal home minister Rajnath Singh accused the maker of India's Daughter, Leslee Udwin, of flouting the conditions under which permission was given to interview Mukesh Singh in jail.

Mukesh Singh was one of those convicted and sentenced following the rape and torture on a moving bus of physiotherapy student Jyoti Singh, who died 13 days after the attack. A male friend who was with Ms Singh was brutally beaten and the battered and unconscious couple were hurled from the moving bus.

Mukesh’s execution, and that of three others convicted in relation to the incident, has been stayed by the Supreme Court pending an appeal.

In Udwin’s film, to be shown on BBC 4 on Sunday night, Mukesh blames the victim for the crime and says she shouldn’t have resisted rape.

“A decent girl won’t roam around at nine o’clock at night. A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy ... Housework and housekeeping is for girls, not roaming in discos and bars at night doing wrong things. About 20 per cent of girls are good,” he says.

The film was due to be aired in India also on Sunday, as part of International Women’s Day, but the government has stepped in to prevent its being broadcast there.

Rajnath Singh, the home minister, told parliament that Udwin had not submitted the full, uncut footage of the interview for approval by jail authorities, as required.

“The documentary depicts the comments of the convict which are highly derogatory and are an affront to the dignity of women,” he said. “How was permission given to interview a rapist? It is shocking. I will get this investigated as this is a strategy designed to sully India’s name.”

He added that his government was taking steps to ensure that the film aired neither in India nor abroad. A BBC spokeswoman said, however, the film would be broadcast as planned.

“This harrowing documentary, made with the full support and co-operation of the victim’s parents, provides a revealing insight into a horrific crime that sent shockwaves around the world and led to protests across India demanding changes in attitudes towards women,” she said.

Udwin told reporters in Delhi on Tuesday that she was “deeply saddened” by the ban imposed on her documentary in India, but said it would be released overseas, as planned.

Rejecting the federal home minister’s claims, she said she had all the necessary approvals from his ministry and Delhi’s Tihar jail, where the convicted men are being held.

Udwin, producer of the 1999 British cult comedy East is East and its sequel, said that she had given jail officials the opportunity to sit through hours of unedited footage, but they had declined, and later approved an edited version.

For over two years, Udwin worked with an Indian journalist to produce the 62-minute documentary, culled from 31 hours of interviews.

and the battered and unconscious couple were hurled from the moving bus on which the attack took place. They lay on the roadside for several hours before being taken to hospital.

Ms Singh died in a Singapore hospital a fortnight later, sparking nationwide protests and forcing India to introduce tougher anti-rape and sexual harassment laws.

On an average a rape is reported every 21 minutes across India, and Delhi has come to be known as the country’s rape capital. According to the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, the incidence of rape in Delhi increased by 329 per cent between 2001 and 2013, to 8,060 cases.