Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Uma Bharti created a huge controversy when she revealed that she had rapists tortured and asked victims to watch while she was the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh.
While addressing a rally in Agra, she raised the issue of the Bulandhahr gang rape and said, “Rapists should be tortured in front of the victims until they beg for their lives. When I was the chief minister, I got it done.”
Ms. Bharti, who is Union Water Resources Minister, provided graphic details on how rapists should be tortured. “Rapists should be hung upside down. They should be beaten till their skin comes off. Also, salt and chilly should be rubbed on their skin, especially on their wounds, till they scream and beg for forgiveness. This is what I had done when I was the CM,” she said. Ms. Bharti, who is in the news for her intemperate remarks, was the CM of Madhya Pradesh from 2003 to 2004.
She went on to say how, when a police officer objected to the torture of rapists on grounds of violation of human rights, she had said that rapists have no human rights. “I told the police officer that people who behave like danav (demons) do not deserve human rights. Their heads should be cut off like Ravana’s,” she told the gathering in Agra.
