Uttar Pradesh minister and Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) leader Om Prakash Rajbhar courted controversy with his insensitive response to a question related to the Unnao rape survivor being removed from a protest site by the Delhi Police.
A clip of Rajbhar’s remarks has been widely circulated on social media, with users criticising the minister for mocking the rape survivor.
Journalists had asked why the police picked up the rape survivor and those accompanying her from India Gate. In response, Rajbhar said that their home was in Unnao and then burst into laughter.
Reactiong sharply to Rajbhar's comment, an user wrote, "Seeing Om Prakash Rajbhar's shamelessness, it feels like this person isn't even worthy of being called human; these people have turned a daughter's rape into a mere joke ."
“I felt like ending my life at that moment, but thoughts of my family stopped me,” the survivor said on Tuesday evening after she and her mother were forcibly removed from the lawns of India Gate while protesting a Delhi High Court order granting bail to Kuldeep Singh Sengar in the 2017 rape case.
Earlier in the day, the survivor described the Delhi High Court’s decision to suspend the jail sentence of the expelled BJP leader as “kaal” (death) for her family and said she would move the Supreme Court.
On Tuesday, the Delhi High Court suspended Sengar’s life sentence and granted him bail while his appeal against the December 2019 conviction by a trial court remains pending.
