New Delhi: Spiritual Guru Asaram Bapu has landed himself in a controversy over his remark that the December 16 Delhi gang-rape victim is as guilty as those responsible for the barbaric sexual assault on her.

“Only 5-6 people are not the culprits. The victim daughter is as guilty as her rapists… She should have called the culprits brothers and begged before them to stop… This could have saved her dignity and life. Can one hand clap? I don’t think so,” media reports quoted Asaram Bapu as saying.

According to media reports, the self-proclaimed godman further said that he is against harsher punishments for the accused as the law could be misutilised.

“We have often seen such laws are made to be misutilised… Dowry harassment law is the biggest example,” he said.

The spiritual guru’s remark comes at a time when the entire nation is mourning the death of the 23-year-old braveheart who died in a Singapore hospital 13 days later after the heinous crime.

The Delhi Police had earlier on Thursday filed its chargesheet in the Saket metropolitan magistrate court against five men arrested in the case, slapping on them murder, rape, kidnapping and other charges.

The five accused have been chargesheeted for the offences of murder, gang rape, attempt to murder, kidnapping, unnatural offences, dacoity, hurting in committing robbery, destruction of evidence, criminal conspiracy and common intention under the Indian Penal Code.

The sixth accused is a juvenile and proceedings against him will be conducted by the Juvenile Justice Board.

The victim’s father has demanded that the juvenile should be hanged like the other five accused.

The victim, a physiotherapy student, was brutally raped and assaulted in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012. She died of her injuries on December 29, 2012 in the multi-specialty Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.

Her male friend, who was accompanying her that day, was also assaulted by the accused and both of them were thrown out of the bus.

ZEENEWS