Delhi rapist interview row: Rajnath Singh vows to stop telecast of interview, govt warns TV channels
New Delhi: Rajnath Singh on Wednesday said the government would not allow broadcast of the controversial documentary featuring the Nirbhaya gangrape convict as members of Parliament, cutting across party lines, expressed outrage over the incident.
The court also banned the telecast of the documentary on the internet too.
Maintaining that it would not allow commercial use of such incidents, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said he was "stunned" as to how permission was granted for the convict's interview inside the Tihar Jail here in the first place.
Having registered an FIR over the controversial interview, Delhi Police meanwhile said it will probe as to why the contents of the work were not shown to the relevant authorities.
"Why the permission was given doesn't fall under the ambit of our investigation, what does is the content of the interview, which was not shown to the authorities concerned.
Read: Nirbhaya rapist interview row: Parents of victim condemn convict's comments
"Prima facie, there is no criminality in giving permission for an interview," Delhi Police Commissioner BS Bassi told reporters here, adding that the documentary filmmaker was allowed to hold the interview under certain conditions, one of which was that it should contain nothing against the law.
Delhi Police had on Tuesday registered an FIR and secured a court order restraining the media from airing the interview which has triggered a storm and wherein the convict, Mukesh Singh, shows no remorse over the crime, which had shocked the nation.
Although nobody has been named in the FIR, Bassi maintained that the "main actor" was the person who made these assertions and urged the media not to broadcast any assertion, which transgresses the law.
"It was a ghastly crime. One has to take into consideration that reporting of a crime does not transgress the domain of the law and, if that happens, then the law will have to take its course," he had told reporters yesterday.
In the interview conducted by British filmmaker Leslee Udwin and BBC, Singh, the driver of the bus in which the 23-year-old paramedical student was brutally gangraped by six men on December 16, 2012, says that women who go out at night have only themselves to blame if they attract the attention of gangs of male molesters.
"A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy," he said. Singh also said that had the girl and her friend not tried to fight back, the gang would not have inflicted the savage beating which led to her death later.
Read: Delhi gangrape documentary: Permission to interview rapist given by Home Ministry
The FIR was registered under IPC sections relating to statements conducing to create public mischief, intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace, intent to cause or which is likely to cause, fear or alarm to the public, word, gesture or act intended to insult modesty of a woman and under the IT Act provisions of punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service at the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police.
Late last evening, Delhi Police moved Metropolitan Magistrate Puneet Pahwa at Patiala House here and obtained an order restraining the media from broadcasting, publishing or transmitting the controversial interview till further orders.
