'Brother I am helpless', Asaram Bapu says girl should have begged the rapists

Spiritual leader Asaram Bapu’s controversial remark suggesting that the woman who was brutally gang-raped in Delhi was equally responsible for the crime and she could have called her assailants brothers and begged them to stop, may land him into legal trouble.

While addressing his supporters, Asaram said when the girl encountered six drunk men “she should have taken God’s name and could have held the hand of one of the men and said I consider you my brother and should have said to the other two ‘Brother I am helpless, you are my brother, my religious brother’.”

Legal experts say that the self-proclaimed spiritual leader can be booked for defamation, criminal contempt of court and violation of constitutional norms under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and even a common man can file plea against him for his utterances.

Talking to DNA, city-based senior lawyer Girish Patel said that according to section 499 of IPC, the parents of the girl can file a criminal defamation case against Asaram for defaming his daughter after her death.