NEW DELHI: A senior leader of Communist Party Of India (CPI) has blamed Bollywood actor and former porn star Sunny Leone and her contraceptives advertisement for the rising rape cases in India, Hindustan Times reported.
Speaking at a rally in Ghazipur district of Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday, Atul Kumar Anjan, a senior CPI leader not only blamed the 34 year old Leone for rising rape cases but also of promoting porn in the country.
“Now there is an advertisement with her (Leone), have you seen it? She is lying down...and a man comes to her. (They show the advertisement) in the morning, at night...an advertisement for condoms, it is such a dirty and horrific advertisement that develops your sexuality and destroys your sensibility,” he told a cheering crowd.
“If such advertisements for condoms appear in the country’s TV channels and newspapers, then incidents of rape will increase. It needs to be stopped,” Anjan added.
Related: Leone dragged into rape debate
While blaming Leone for promoting porn in India, Anjan claimed that he had never watched a single porn film in his life but when he did watch porn for the first time, "do minute dekhne ke baad ulti hoti hai (After watching two minutes, I feel like vomiting)."
Backlash against CPI statement
Women's groups slammed the comments as ignorant as a backlash against Anjan spiralled on social media in India.
“Comrade - rape is caused by men's sense of entitlement and lack of concern for women's autonomy and consent. Not by pornography, naked women or any other 'provocation',” women's activist Kavita Krishnan posted on her Facebook page.
The fatal gang-rape of a student on a moving bus in New Delhi in December 2012 sparked a massive public outcry and led to tougher laws for sexual offenders.
But India's politicians have also been accused of trivialising such crimes.
A former chief minister of northern Uttar Pradesh state, Mulayam Singh, triggered outrage during the national election last year over comments about rape in which he said “boys make mistakes” and “boys will be boys”.
The central Madhya Pradesh state government's home minister also said last year that rapes were “sometimes right, sometimes wrong”.
Several politicians have also sought to blame tight jeans, short skirts and other Western influences for the country's rise in rapes, while the head of a village council pointed to chow mein which he claimed led to hormone imbalances among men.
Leone, 34, a porn star turned Bollywood actress, was drawn into a debate in 2013 on whether to ban porn outright in India following a series of brutal rapes.
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