NEW DELHI // An Indian female politician and activist has said rape victims may have invited attacks by their clothes and behaviour, fuelling a national debate over a series of incidents of sexual violence against women.

Asha Mirje, a Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader in western Maharashtra state, questioned at a meeting on Tuesday why a 23-year-old physiotherapy student who was gang raped on a bus in Delhi in 2012 was out late at night.

The student died of her injuries and thousands of people took to the streets in nationwide protests against the prevalence of rape and sexual assault in the world’s largest democracy.

A number of shocking incidents have since been highlighted in Indian media, most recently the case of 20-year-old woman who said she was gang raped in a rural area of West Bengal in eastern India on the orders of a village court last week.

Ms Mirje, who is a member of the state women’s commission, said in reference to the Delhi assault: “Did [she] really have go to watch a movie at 11 in the night with her friend?”

She also commented on the gang rape of a photojournalist who was on assignment at a disused mill in Mumbai last year, asking why the victim had gone to such an isolated place.

“Rapes take place also because of a woman’s clothes, her behaviour and her presence at inappropriate places,” she said.

Women must be “careful”, she said.

* Reuters