Maharashtra minister retracts on rape comment; says women safety priority

Mumbai: In a shocking statement, Maharashtra Home Minister R R Patil on Wednesday said that even if a policeman is posted in every home, atrocities against women wouldn’t be contained.

He also said that obscene images of women in advertisements were causing more rapes.

In 2013, a phot-journalist was gangraped in Mumbai’s Shakti mill compound, sending shockwaves across the nation.

The horrific case also broke notions that Mumbai was the safest city for women in India.

India also altered its rape laws after a young physiotherapist was gangraped in a moving bus in Delhi in December 2012.

The brutal assault on the trainee physiotherapist jolted tens of thousands of usually apathetic urban Indians to take to the streets in December and January to protest on women's security, throwing a global spotlight on a country where a rape occurs every 20 minutes.

Watch: Protests after the 2012 Delhi gangrape