One of the men convicted of raping and killing a woman in a brutal gang attack on a New Delhi bus in 2012 has said in a TV documentary that if the victim had not fought back she would not have been killed.
Instead, the 23-year-old should have remained silent, said Mukesh Singh, who was driving the bus when the woman was attacked.
"Then they would have dropped her off after 'doing her'," he said in a documentary being released next week.
The film-makers have released transcripts of the interview, which was recorded in 2013.
Singh and three other attackers were convicted in a fast-track court in 2013. The appeals against their death sentences are pending in the Supreme Court.
"A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy," Singh said, according to the transcripts. "A decent girl won't roam around at 9 o'clock at night. Housework and housekeeping is for girls, not roaming in discos and bars at night doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes."
The woman and her friend were returning home from seeing a film at an upmarket mall when they got on the bus. The attackers beat her friend and took turns raping the woman. She suffered severe internal injuries which caused her death.
India, where many people have long believed that women are responsible for rape, was shocked into action after the attack. The Indian government rushed through legislation doubling prison terms for rapists to 20 years and criminalising voyeurism, stalking and the trafficking of women. The law also makes it a crime for police officers to refuse to open cases when complaints are made.
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