New Delhi : The government on Thursday served legal notice to BBC for the controversial documentary on the December 16, 2012 gang rape, saying the broadcaster “violated the contract on various fronts”.
“A legal notice has been served to the BBC. The notice says that they (BBC) had violated the contract on various fronts,” a home ministry official told IANS.
“They were supposed to take final approval from the Tihar jail authorities on the interview of the convicts but they did not do so, and according to the contract signed with the BBC, they were barred to use the documentary for commercial purpose, which they have violated too,” he said.
Earlier in the day, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said the government was “examining all aspects” related to the documentary and would take action, if required.
Before airing the film in Britain and some other countries, the BBC had assured the government that it would not be aired in India. The film was subsequently uploaded on YouTube.
“The BBC had planned to air the film on March 8, but they showed it on March 4, the home ministry said wondering “what was the hurry?”
British filmmaker Leslee Udwin, however, urged the authorities concerned to watch the documentary before arriving at any conclusion about it.
In an interview to NDTV, Udwin said the documentary was not aimed to defame India.
She said it was not the rape that brought her to India, it was actually the protest and the concern of the people towards the incident that brought her to the country.
“Had it happened in Turkey, I would have gone there. I came here with the best of motives. I wanted to inquire into why men rape,” she said, adding that she did not want to hurt India’s interests in any way.
“I wanted to find why rapes happen,” she said, adding that she herself was raped.
“Rapes happen everywhere. I wanted to understand the mindset of the rapists,” the British filmmaker said, urging people to watch the documentary before writing it off.
The documentary is about the gang rape of a 23-year-old trainee physiotherapist, who was brutally assaulted on December 16, 2012 on a moving bus in Delhi. Severely injured during the brutal assault, the woman was shifted for specialised treatment to a Singapore hospital where she died on December 29, 2012.