New Delhi: So sensitive is the topic of sexual violence in India that the one thing most Indian politicians agreed on this week was that no one should be allowed to view a new BBC documentary examining the savage 2012 gang rape and death of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student in New Delhi that sent shockwaves across the world.
Even many Indian women's rights groups appeared uncomfortable with the one-hour film that features an interview with one of the rapists who said the victim would have lived if only she had submitted to the rape.
On Friday the Indian government was still lobbying YouTube and other websites to remove all links to the film, India's Daughter, directed by British filmmaker Leslee Udwin, after failing to prevent the BBC from putting the film to air in Britain on Thursday night.
While government officials managed to secure a court injunction banning the film from being broadcast in India, at least one YouTube link to the film received more than 100,000 views before it was removed, with new links to the film popping up to replace the ones taken down.
Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh said the government had also served legal notices on the BBC for failing to secure approval for commercial use of the documentary.
"We had informed all channels that the documentary must not be released. But the BBC has broadcast it in London. Whatever action we have to take, the Home Ministry will go ahead and do that," Mr Singh said.
The BBC defended the airing of the documentary, which it said gave insight into the mindset of the perpetrators.
"The remarks of the perpetrator are set among a number of views, including those of the parents, ex- or present members of the judiciary, witnesses and personal testimonies," a BBC statement said.
YouTube, which is only required to remove links specifically pointed out by the Indian government showing illegal content, said it would comply with its legal obligations.
"While we believe that access to information is the foundation of a free society and that services like YouTube help people to express themselves, we continue to remove content that is illegal or violates our community guidelines once notified," a YouTube spokesman told The Indian Express.
The film, a private screening of which was attended by Fairfax Media in New Delhi this week, has provoked outrage across a wide cross-section of Indian society, with many community leaders complaining that the documentary gave a platform to the perpetrators.
Speaking publicly for the first time about the crime that sparked violent protests across India, one of the perpetrators, Mukesh Singh, blamed the victim.
"You can't clap with one hand," Singh said. "It takes two hands. A decent girl won't roam around at 9 o'clock at night. A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy. Boy and girl are not equal. Housework and housekeeping is for girls, not roaming in discos and bars at night doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes. About 20 per cent of girls are good.
"When being raped, she shouldn't fight back," Singh added. "She should just be silent and allow the rape. Then they'd have dropped her off after doing her, and only hit the boy."
Singh has been sentenced to death for his part in the crime.
The woman and a male friend were returning home on December 16, 2012, after seeing a movie together when they were lured onto a private bus by five men and one male youth.
With Mukesh Singh driving the bus, the other five first knocked the woman's male friend unconscious and then dragged the woman to the back of the bus and raped her, as well as severely damaging her internal organs with an iron rod. They then dumped the couple by the roadside, naked and bleeding. It took two weeks for the woman to die from her injuries.
In a letter to leading cable news channel NDTV, which was scheduled to air a 40-minute version of the film on Sunday night, a group of leading women's activists including former solicitor-general Indira Jaising and prominent lawyer Vrinda Grover urged the channel to delay its broadcast.
Writing in The Guardian, prominent author Nilanjana Roy also warned of the "very real risk of turning a rapist into the Twitter celebrity of the day".
