Woman’s clothes, behaviour also responsible for rapes: NCP leader’s Asha Mirje

Nagpur, Maharashtra –   Maharashtra politician Asha Mirje has generated shock-waves with her comment that women are also to be blamed for rape.

Ms Mirje, a leader of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) that partners the ruling Congress in the state, questioned at a party meet why the young medical student who was fatally gang-raped on a moving bus in Delhi in December, 2012, was out with her friend at night. She also commented on a photojournalist who was gang-raped at the abandoned Shakti Mills complex last year.

“Did Nirbhaya really have go to watch a movie at 11 in the night with her friend? Take the Shakti Mills gang-rape case. Why did the (survivor) go to such an isolated spot at 6 pm?” she said.

“Rapes take place also because of a woman’s clothes, her behaviour and her being at inappropriate places.”

The NCP leader, who is also a member of the Maharashtra Women’s Commission, was speaking at a gathering of her party’s women workers in Nagpur on Tuesday.

The comments have sparked outrage at a time there is a nationwide debate on women’s safety and sexual crimes. The Delhi gang-rape brought angry people to the streets and triggered major changes in the law to provide stronger deterrents against rape and assault of women.