The December 16, 2012, gang-rape generated a never-seen-before interest in the international media.
Jason Burke, the South Asia correspondent of The Guardian, and said the incident was waiting to happen. “It wasn’t surprising to me because you have to see how a degree of sexual violence and minor events like what is called euphemistically eve-teasing along with very common sight of men urinating in public is broadly tolerated. Sadly, it was a tragedy waiting to happen.”
“It was nice to see that the great tradition of Indian civil disobedience movement is not dead,” he said, terming the government reaction as “dreadful”.
Abhaya Srivastava of AFP, which went to court seeking permission for covering the trial in the case, said: “Earlier, we would dismiss everyday incidents of rape, but the December 16 case just stuck. Here was a woman from the middle-class aspiring to become something and had simply gone to the cinema. People across the world could connect with that.”
Antoine Guinard of Radio France said: “It was surprising to see people coming out on the streets and protesting at India Gate. It was a real movement.”
BBC’s Sojoy Majumdar said: “In India itself, the incident generated a lot of reaction. People wrote in from all over the world, shocked how a woman from middle class, trying to make something of her life, was treated like that.”
