New Delhi: An Indian spiritual leader Asaram Bapu has sparked outrage in the country after remarking that Delhi gang-rape victim Jyoti Singh Pandey was equally responsible for her rape as she should have begged the rapists for her life, calling them brothers.
“She (Pandey) should have taken God’s name and could have held the hand of one of the men and said I consider you my brother and should have said to the other two ‘Brother I am helpless, you are my brother, my religious brother’,” Asaram said while addressing his supporters at Tonk town, some 100 km from Jaipur.
“She should have taken God’s name and held their hands and feet…then the misconduct wouldn’t have happened.” “The accused were drunk. If the girl had chanted hymns to Goddess Saraswati and to Guru Diksha then she wouldn’t have entered the bus…,” he added.
Legal experts say that the self-proclaimed spiritual leader can be booked for defamation, criminal contempt of court and violation of constitutional norms under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and even a common man can file plea against him for what he said.
A senior Indian lawyer Girish Patel told DNA that under the section 499 of IPC, the parents of the girl can file a criminal defamation case against Asaram for defaming his daughter after her death.
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