Close to the heels of male politicians and khaps, a female politician and a member of the Maharashtra Women’s Commission has insensitively blamed women for getting raped.
Asha Mirje, who is a Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader, was speaking at a gathering of her party’s women’s wing in Nagpur when she asked why Nirbhaya, the 23-year-old medical student, who was gang-raped on a moving bus in Delhi in December, 2012, was out with her friend late at night.
Read: What the people in power say about rapes
She also passes ludicrous comments on the photojournalist who was gang-raped at the abandoned Shakti Mills complex in Mumbai last year.
Mirje reportedly said, “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 victim go to such an isolated spot at 6pm?”
She further added that rapes take place also because of a woman’s clothes, her behaviour and her presence at inappropriate places.
We are saddened by the shocking and backward views presented by a woman in power. It is sad that women cannot respect other women, what can be expected from men then?