BBC documentary on 2012 Delhi gang-rape outrages India

Supporters of Aam Aadmi (Common Man) Party (AAP) hold placards and shout slogans behind a police barricade during a protest against the rape of a female taxi passenger, in New Delhi, December 8, 2014. [Photo/Agencies]

NEW DELHI - A major controversy has broken out in India ahead of the screening of a BBC documentary based on the brutal and fatal gang-rape of a 23-year-old medical student by six men on a moving bus in the national capital in December 2012.

Facing massive uproar in Parliament, mostly from women lawmakers, the Indian government said on Wednesday the documentary would not be allowed to be telecast and a court injunction blocking the broadcast has also been obtained from a local court.

"When I heard about the documentary I was hurt. Under no circumstances should this be telecast. So we got a restraining order from the court," Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh told Parliament.

He added: "We will investigate why permission was given at the first place to the documentary makers to interview one of six rapists on death row. Foreign governments will also be urged not to allow the documentary to be released."

Meanwhile, Delhi police chief B.S. Bassi said: "We urge the Indian media not to show it."

But what is the controversy all about?

In the documentary, "India's Daughter," Mukesh Singh, one of the rapists on death row, has been interviewed by British filmmaker Leslee Udwin at the high-secured Tihar jail. Mukesh has displayed an appalling lack of remorse and went to the extent of even blaming the woman for the rape.

Mukesh, sentenced to death by a fast-track court along with three others, has appealed against the sentence in the Supreme Court, where the case has now been pending for the last one year. The main accused Ram Singh committed suicide during the trial and another being a juvenile escaped death.

Experts are, however, divided on the issue of blocking the screening of the documentary, with some saying that the judiciary should speed up the dispensation of justice in cases like rape, instead of only banning it.

"Banning the documentary is not the answer. We have to confront the issue that men in India do not respect women and any time there is a rape, blame is put on the woman that she was indecently dressed, she provoked the men," said Anu Aga, a leading businesswoman and social activist.