ONE OF THE men sentenced to death for the gang rape and murder of a woman in India has said the victim was killed because she fought back.

Mukesh Singh was speaking to the BBC as part of an upcoming documentary.

The December 2012 murder of 23-year-old medical student Jyoti Singh shocked the world.

Sunday’s programme will feature an interview with Mukesh Singh, one of four men convicted.

The young woman was beaten with iron bars during the rape and was thrown from the moving bus along with her friend. She suffered horrific injuries and died 13 days later.

In the interview, Singh describes the murder as “an accident”:

When being raped, she shouldn’t fight back. She should just be silent and allow the rape. Then they’d have dropped her off after ‘doing her’, and only hit the boy.

The brutal rape set off waves of protest in India, giving voice to years of anger over the treatment, rape and sexual harassment of women.

Singh also spoke about rape across India, claiming that women are more responsible for rape than men.

“You can’t clap with one hand – it takes two hands. A decent girl won’t roam around at 9 o’clock at night,” he told the BBC Storyville programme.

“A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy. Boy and girl are not equal. Housework and housekeeping is for girls, not roaming in discos and bars at night doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes. About 20% of girls are good.”

Singh is also appealing his death sentence and claims his execution, along with the three others, will make it more dangerous for rape victims:

The death penalty will make things even more dangerous for girls. Now when they rape, they won’t leave the girl like we did. They will kill her. Before, they would rape and say, ‘Leave her, she won’t tell anyone.’ Now when they rape, especially the criminal types, they will just kill the girl. Death.

The programme will be broadcast on Sunday 8 March, International Women’s Day, on BBC Four.