Jaitley calls December 16 gangrape ’small’ incident, creates uproar

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, August 22, 2014: In an insensitive remark, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Thursday that the brutal gangrape and murder of a 23-year-old paramedic student in 2012 cost India billions of dollars in tourism.

"A law and order problem, one small incident of rape in Delhi advertised world over is enough to cost us millions of dollars in terms of lower tourism. So we have a national responsibility especially when God has blessed us with everything, which a tourist wants to see. We just have to catalyze that process and make sure that we take the right steps," said the minister, who was addressing the conference of state tourism ministers in Delhi.

Dwelling on how to boost India’s tourism, he stressed on improving women safety and lower taxation.

"If tourism industry, state governments and the centre are loaded with higher taxes then we will have less tourists and lesser collection," Jaitley said.

The paramedic students and her male friend were abducted in a bus on December 12, 2012. The assailants gangraped the woman in the moving bus, while brutally assaulting her and his friend.The woman later succumbed to her injuries.

The incident caused massive uproar in India, forcing the then UPA government to make amendments in the existing rape laws.


Courtesy:Indiatoday