Rajya Sabha MPs demand Rajasthan minister’s sacking for remarks on rape victim

Rajasthan Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria. (File Photo)

Rajya Sabha MPs demanded the sacking of Rajasthan Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria Thursday following his remarks over the alleged rape of a 13-year-old-girl. Raising the issue, JD(U) member Kahkashan Perween said that while on the one hand the prime minister is running a ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ scheme, a minister from Rajasthan has given a “very irresponsible statement”. “Something wrong is done to a girl. She tells her father about it but there is a delay in her registering an FIR. On the delay in registering the FIR, the home minister of Rajasthan says that if eight people rape a girl and she does not inform her parents the same day, it does not hold much water to him,” Perween alleged.

Kataria had said in Jaipur: “Normally, if eight people rape together, and the child does not inform the parents on the same day, then it doesn’t make much sense to me. I can say this after years of experience.” Perween said the remarks are “very shameful” and that if the prime minister has respect for women, then the “minister should be sacked immediately”. The Congress’s Viplove Thakur too said action should be taken against the minister. Members including of the Congress, the CPM and the BSP, and even of the BJP, backed Perween’s stand.

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said: “If the statement that has been published in newspapers is true, then no such statement can be justified. Rather it is condemnable… The National Commission for Women has given a notice. Besides, the Centre will convey the sentiments of this House to the state government so that it takes appropriate steps.” Deputy chairman P J Kurien asked the minister to inform the House about what is happening in the case, too.

The House saw a brief adjournment earlier, after Perween had sought to raise the issue. As Kurien disallowed her saying it was not a point of order, women MPs trooped into the well raising slogans against the “insensitive” remarks. Soon men too joined them.