The tweets came after Azmi reportedly told Mid-day that any woman who has sex outside marriage should be hanged, including rape victims.

Actress Ayesha Takia has tweeted expressing shock and disgust at the contentious 'rape' comments attributed to her father-in-law, SP leader Abu Azmi.

Takia tweeted, "if wot im reading about my father in laws statements r true then me and Farhan are deeply embarrassed n ashamed... We surely do nottt share this mindset...its disrespectful to women.if these statements r true then its sad.

The tweets came after Azmi reportedly told Mid-day that any woman who has sex outside marriage should be hanged, including rape victims.

"Rape is punishable by hanging in Islam. But here, nothing happens to women, only to men. Even the woman is guilty. Girls complain when someone touches them, and even when someone doesn’t touch them. It becomes a problem then... If rape happens with or without consent, it should be punished as prescribed in Islam", he told the newspaper.

He went on to say that the solution to rape was hanging both the man and woman.

The shocking comment came on the back of party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav saying 'men commit mistakes but they can't be hanged for it", referring to the Shakti Mills gangrape case where the men were sentenced to death by a court for raping a photo-journalist under the new rape law.

It was almost as though the party leaders were competing with one another to come up with the most shocking statement about rape and women.

Nothing more has been heard from Abu Azmi, but Mulayam Singh Yadav has remained defiant about his comment, insisting that he had said nothing wrong. His son Akhilesh Yadav on the other hand, has hastened to clarify that the Samajwadi Party remained deeply opposed to rape.