Media blew 2012 Delhi gangrape case 'out of proportion': Sheila Dikshit

Senior Congress leader and former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit has said that the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape case was “blown out of proportion” by the media.

In an interview to Mirror Now, Dikshit claimed that her government had no role to play then as the law and order of the national capital was under the purview of the central government.

“There are so many cases like this taking place today. Sometimes you ignore rapes, just a little thing in the newspaper...little children being raped...and one was made into a political scandal,” Dikshit was quoted by Mirror Now as saying.

Asked about ensuring women’s safety by installing proper street lighting and CCTV installations, Dikshit said it was not her government’s responsibility as Delhi Police comes under the Centre.

The 23-year-old paramedic student was raped on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a running bus in South Delhi by six persons and severely assaulted before being thrown out on the road. She died on December 29, 2012 at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.

The incident had sparked nationwide outrage and protests. Sheila Dikshit was the Chief Minister of Delhi at that time.

One of the accused Ram Singh had hanged himself in the jail and another, the juvenile, was convicted of rape and murder and given the maximum sentence of three years' imprisonment in a reform facility.

On July 9, the apex court dismissed the pleas of three convicts -- Mukesh (31), Pawan Gupta (24) and Vinay Sharma (25) -- seeking review of it 2017 verdict which upheld the capital punishment awarded to them by the Delhi High Court and the trial court in the case.

The fourth death row convict, Akshay Kumar Singh (33), has not filed a review plea in the apex court.

This is not the first time Dikshit has made controversial remarks on women’s safety. In 2008, reacting to the murder case of journalist Soumya Vishwanathan, Dikshit had said: “When that journalist was out at 3 am in the morning, she was being too adventurous”.