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| Bus Driver in Delhi Gang Rape Blames Victim | Bus Driver in Delhi Gang Rape Blames Victim |
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| NEW DELHI — In the months after a young woman was brutalized and gang-raped on a moving bus in New Delhi in 2012, thousands of politicians, activists and ordinary citizens crowded onto India’s airwaves and into its public spaces to say their piece about the crime. | NEW DELHI — In the months after a young woman was brutalized and gang-raped on a moving bus in New Delhi in 2012, thousands of politicians, activists and ordinary citizens crowded onto India’s airwaves and into its public spaces to say their piece about the crime. |
| But there was no comment from the six slight, ordinary-looking men accused of her murder. Whisked in and out of the courtroom past shouting crowds of journalists, they listened impassively to testimony and offered monosyllabic answers on the stand. Courtroom guards said they hummed Bollywood tunes under their breath. Their opinions were anyone’s guess. | But there was no comment from the six slight, ordinary-looking men accused of her murder. Whisked in and out of the courtroom past shouting crowds of journalists, they listened impassively to testimony and offered monosyllabic answers on the stand. Courtroom guards said they hummed Bollywood tunes under their breath. Their opinions were anyone’s guess. |
| Now, in his first in-depth interview, one of the men, Mukesh Singh, has told a British filmmaker that the young woman invited the rape because she was out too late at night. | Now, in his first in-depth interview, one of the men, Mukesh Singh, has told a British filmmaker that the young woman invited the rape because she was out too late at night. |
| “You can’t clap with one hand,” said Mr. Singh, who drove the bus during the crime but denied taking part in the assault. “It takes two hands. A decent girl won’t roam around at 9 o’clock at night. A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy. Boy and girl are not equal. Housework and housekeeping is for girls, not roaming in discos and bars at night doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes. About 20 percent of girls are good.” | “You can’t clap with one hand,” said Mr. Singh, who drove the bus during the crime but denied taking part in the assault. “It takes two hands. A decent girl won’t roam around at 9 o’clock at night. A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy. Boy and girl are not equal. Housework and housekeeping is for girls, not roaming in discos and bars at night doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes. About 20 percent of girls are good.” |
| The woman, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student, had been to see “Life of Pi” with a male friend, and they both boarded the private bus without realizing that the six men aboard had been driving the streets in search of a victim. After knocking her friend unconscious, they took her to the back of the bus and raped her, then damaged her internal organs with an iron rod. An hour later, they dumped the pair out on the road, bleeding and naked. She died two weeks later of her injuries. | |
| In the interview, for a film that will air Sunday on the BBC, Mr. Singh said the woman had provoked the deadly assault by resisting the rape. | In the interview, for a film that will air Sunday on the BBC, Mr. Singh said the woman had provoked the deadly assault by resisting the rape. |
| “When being raped, she shouldn’t fight back,” he told the filmmaker, Leslee Udwin, according to a transcript provided by the BBC. “She should just be silent and allow the rape. Then they’d have dropped her off after ‘doing her,’ and only hit the boy.” | “When being raped, she shouldn’t fight back,” he told the filmmaker, Leslee Udwin, according to a transcript provided by the BBC. “She should just be silent and allow the rape. Then they’d have dropped her off after ‘doing her,’ and only hit the boy.” |
| In footage from the film, Mr. Singh tonelessly narrates the assault, saying that he heard her screaming for help but that his brother instructed him to keep driving as they “dragged her to the back” and “went turn by turn.” Afterward, he said, he saw the youngest of the assailants, who was 17 at the time of the crime, withdraw something from her body. | |
| “It was her intestines,” Mr. Singh said. “He said, ‘She’s dead. Throw her out quickly.’ ” | |
| He called the killing “an accident.” | He called the killing “an accident.” |
| Ms. Udwin, at a news conference in New Delhi, said the film crew interviewed Mr. Singh for 16 hours and saw no sign of remorse. “He is almost like a robot,” she said. “I tried every trick to get a tear in his eye, but nothing. No tear.” | |
| Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday demanded an explanation from the Tihar Jail, where Mr. Singh is incarcerated, as to why they had allowed the interview while the case was pending trial. | Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday demanded an explanation from the Tihar Jail, where Mr. Singh is incarcerated, as to why they had allowed the interview while the case was pending trial. |
| The prison authorities in Tihar told The Indian Express, a daily newspaper, that they are in the process of filing a legal notice against the BBC for violating its agreement to submit the footage for approval. The filmmakers said that they submitted the footage, and that it was approved. | |
| According to police records, the six men divided the pair’s possessions: Mr. Singh took one mobile phone, and Vinay Sharma, a 20-year-old gym instructor, took the other. Pawan Gupta took the man’s watch and 1,000 rupees cash, a little less than $20. Akshay Kumar Singh, a bus cleaner, took the woman’s rings. The juvenile was given a bank card and some cash from the spoil. | According to police records, the six men divided the pair’s possessions: Mr. Singh took one mobile phone, and Vinay Sharma, a 20-year-old gym instructor, took the other. Pawan Gupta took the man’s watch and 1,000 rupees cash, a little less than $20. Akshay Kumar Singh, a bus cleaner, took the woman’s rings. The juvenile was given a bank card and some cash from the spoil. |
| Mr. Singh’s brother, Ram Singh, hanged himself with his bedsheet in his prison cell months before the trial. The juvenile defendant, whose identity was never made public in accordance with Indian law, was sentenced to three years in a detention center — the heaviest sentence possible in India’s juvenile justice system. The remaining four men pleaded not guilty; they are appealing their death sentences. | Mr. Singh’s brother, Ram Singh, hanged himself with his bedsheet in his prison cell months before the trial. The juvenile defendant, whose identity was never made public in accordance with Indian law, was sentenced to three years in a detention center — the heaviest sentence possible in India’s juvenile justice system. The remaining four men pleaded not guilty; they are appealing their death sentences. |
| Mr. Singh told the filmmaker that he believed the harsh sentences, instead of acting as a deterrent, would drive more rapists to kill their victims in the future. “Now, when they rape, they won’t leave the girl like we did,” he said. “They will kill her. Before, they would rape and say, ‘Leave her alone. She won’t tell anyone.’ Now, when they rape, especially the criminal types, they will just kill the girl. Death.” | Mr. Singh told the filmmaker that he believed the harsh sentences, instead of acting as a deterrent, would drive more rapists to kill their victims in the future. “Now, when they rape, they won’t leave the girl like we did,” he said. “They will kill her. Before, they would rape and say, ‘Leave her alone. She won’t tell anyone.’ Now, when they rape, especially the criminal types, they will just kill the girl. Death.” |