Banned BBC film shown in rapists' slum, FIR slapped

Delhi Police on Friday registered a case under section 188 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) for showing the banned BBC documentary on December 16, 2012 gangrape.  The FIR has been filed against an activist who claims to be an independent film-maker. The movie was screened in a jhuggi cluster of RK Puram, the residence of four of the December 16 gangrape accused.

Indie film-maker and activist Ketan Dixit and some of his associates had allegedly held a screening of the controversial documentary in Sant Ravi Dass camp where the accused in the gangrape case used to live. Dixit has been detained by police.

Police said a case under section 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) of IPC was registered at RK Puram PS on Friday. 

“Nobody has been named in the FIR so far. Police have launched the investigation in connection with the screening of this documentary,” Delhi Police spokesperson Rajan Bhagat said. Another official said those behind the screening would soon be questioned in this connection. A trial court on March 4 had banned until further orders the broadcast of the interview of December 16, 2012 gangrape convict Mukesh Singh, conducted in July 2013 inside Tihar Jail here. Earlier, a trial court had restrained the media from broadcasting or publishing the interview of Mukesh Singh after Delhi Police had registered an FIR in this regard and moved the court seeking restraint..

The I&B Ministry had also issued an advisory to all TV channels not to broadcast it. The victim, a physiotherapy student, was gangraped and assaulted with an iron rod after she boarded an unregistered private bus to go home after watching a movie with a male friend on December 16, 2012. Thirteen days later, she died due to the injuries inflicted upon her at Singapore’s Mount Elizabeth Hospital where she was airlifted for treatment. Mukesh, along with three others, was convicted and sentenced to death in September 2013 for the gangrape and murder of the paramedic.