Ban on interview of Dec 16 gangrape convict to continue: Court
New Delhi:The order restraining airing or broad-casting the interview of a December 16 gangrape con-vict, which was conducted inside the Tihar jail, will continue till further orders, a Delhi court on Wednesday said.
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjay Khanagwal said this after the Delhi Police placed on record the order passed by a metropolitan magistrate yesterday which had restrained media from publishing, broadcasting, telecasting or uploading the interview on the internet.
“Investigating officer (IO) of the case has moved an application for intimation submitting that on March 3, 2015, an application for preventing the media/internet from publishing/transmitting/telecasting/uploading the interview of one of the convicts of the Nirbhaya gangrape case was made before the duty metropolitan magistrate who has already been pleased to pass a restrain order till further orders,” the court noted in its order. “Order dated March 3, 2015 of the duty metropolitan magistrate Puneet Pahwa perused. Be kept on record,” it said.
The police, in its application filed before the court yesterday, had said that Mukesh Singh, the driver of the bus in which the 23-year-old paramedical student was brutally gangraped by six persons on December 16, 2012, has made insulting, malicious and derogatory statements about women. They said if the interview is telecast, it might lead to widespread public outcry and serious law and order problem as had happened in the aftermath of the gangrape case. As the interview of December 16 gangrape convict created a storm, Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday summoned Director General of Tihar Jail, where the documentary was shot.
DG Alok Kumar Verma is understood to have briefed the Home Minister details about how the permission was granted to interview the convict, Mukesh Singh, and how it had taken place.
Official sources said during their ten minute meeting, Verma also conveyed to the Home Minister about various aspects of the jail manuals and the procedures of meeting an inmate by an outsider. Earlier, the Home Minister made identical statements in both Houses of Parliament about circumstances leading to taking of the interview by a British film-maker and the action taken by the government to stop its telecast. The Home Minister said an investigation has been ordered on how the permission was granted to interview Mukesh in July 2013 and also to fix the responsibility.
In the interview, Mukesh, who was awarded death sentence for the brutal rape and murder of the 23-year-old girl, said the women who went out at night had only themselves to blame if they attracted the attention of gangs of male molesters. “A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy,” he had said. (PTI)