(MENAFN- Arab Times) NEW YORK March 10 (Agencies): A rape documentary banned from airing in India received its US premiere at a star-studded event that included actresses Meryl Streep and Freida Pinto. The screening of ''India''s Daughter'' at Baruch College began Monday with a vigil as Oscar-winner Streep lit about a dozen candles honoring the Indian medical student who died after being gang-raped on a bus in 2012.
Organizers said about 650 people attended the event. ''Tonight we light these candles to honor the value and the work of Jyoti Singh''s short promising life'' Streep said. ''She was India''s daughter. Tonight she''s our daughter too.'' The woman was attacked when she and a male companion boarded a private bus in Delhi. The documentary details a brutal account of how six men beat her friend and then gangraped her in the bus before tossing her onto the street. She was found naked on the side of the road and later died of her injuries. Four men were convicted and sentenced to death for the rape and murder. The victim''s parents have publicly named their daughter and have said they want the world to know about her plight. ''Ultimately this is a film that needs to go out'' said Pinto the Indian actress known for her role in ''Slumdog Millionaire'' who does not appear in the film. ''This is not a shame- India documentary.'' The film''s US premiere follows a week of controversy in India.
Uproar
The uproar centered around comments made by one of the convicted rapists interviewed for the film. He blamed the victim for taking a bus late in the evening. ''A decent girl won''t roam around at 9 o''clock at night . ... Housework and housekeeping is for girls not roaming in discos and bars at night doing wrong things wearing wrong clothes'' he said. The documentary by British filmmaker Leslee Udwin herself a rape victim was to have aired on an Indian television station on Sunday International Women''s Day but a court order halted the broadcast.
It was done in the interest of maintaining public order according to Indian authorities. Instead the station showed a blank screen. ''India''s Daughter'' first was screened in Britain on a British Broadcasting Corporation channel last week. Indian viewers cannot see it on the BBC website but it can be seen on YouTube. ''This film in no way is propagating violence in order to solve the problem. In fact what we''re saying is let''s do this in the most civilized possible way ever'' Pinto told The Associated Press before the film''s screening. ''This is not just an India problem; this is a problem that inflicts almost every country in the world'' she said. ''There''s not a single country in 2015 that is free of sexual violence against women.'' In another development: an Indian social activist told Tuesday how he had been detained by police and had his computer equipment impounded after organising a public screening of a banned documentary about a savage gang-rape. Plans by the national NDTV network to broadcast the ''India''s Daughter'' documentary on Sunday to mark International Women''s Day were thwarted when authorities obtained a banning order on the grounds the film risked fuelling public anger.
Campaigned
But Ketan Dixit an activist and film-maker who has campaigned extensively against acid attacks on women decided to put on a screening in a village near the Taj Mahal city of Agra on the same evening as an act of defiance. Dixit was subsequently arrested by police and questioned for several hours before being finally released without charge. ''The police official told me that he was letting me off as he did not have any document on the basis of which I could be arrested'' Dixit told AFP. ''However he seized my laptop projector and other equipment for some investigation.'' Akhilesh Bhadoriya deputy superintendent of police in Agra confirmed that Dixit had been arrested. ''The action was in response to the screening of this documentary which has been banned by the government. We have seized the screening equipment of Ketan Dixit and are probing the case.'' The documentary by awardwinning British filmmaker Leslee Udwin focuses on the murder and gang-rape of a 23- year-old student who was attacked on a moving bus in New Delhi in December 2012. The Indian government reacted furiously when it emerged that Udwin had managed to interview one of the convicted rapists who blamed the victim for the attack which caused mass protests at the time.
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