Amid public outcry on the controversial interview of a December 16 gangrape convict, the Delhi Police on Wednesday claimed that they were investigating why the contents of the interview were not shown to the relevant authorities.
“Why the permission was given doesn’t fall under the ambit of our investigation, what is the content of the interview that was not shown to the authorities concerned. Prima facie, there is no criminality in giving permission for an interview,” Delhi Police Commissioner BS Bassi said.
The police were, however, quick to add 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.
The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police had registered an FIR on Tuesday 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.
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 EOW.
Although nobody has been named in the FIR, the Police Commissioner 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 said while responding to queries.
In the interview conducted by British filmmaker leslee Udwin and BBC, Mukesh 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. Mukesh 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.
late on Tuesday evening, Delhi Police moved Metropolitan Magistrate Puneet Pahwa at Patiala House courts and obtained an order restraining the media from broadcasting, publishing or transmitting the controversial interview till further orders.