New Delhi has become ‘rape capital’ of the world due to obscenity in Bollywood: PM Imran

Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that India’s capital city, New Delhi, has now become the rape capital of the world due to the obscenity and indecent content shown in Bollywood films.

During an interview with a private news channel on Monday, the premier touched upon a range of issues – including the recent barbaric motorway gang-rape incident that has dragged attention to the mushrooming sexual assault cases in the country.

"World history tells when you increase fahashi (vulgarity) in the society, two things happen: sex crimes increase and the family system breaks down," the prime minister maintained, underscoring that it is not only the responsibility of law enforcement agencies to battle out the prevalent sexual crimes in the country in fact it is the responsibility of the entire society to fight against such heinous offences.

Comparing Pakistan's family system with the West, the premier said that "our family system is intact and we can fix our justice system and the institutions but if our family system breaks down, we will not be able to rebuild it".

Read more: PM Imran calls for chemical castration of rapists

Speaking about how mass media influences the public, PM Imran mentioned neighbouring country, India, noting that the indecent content and “obscenity” shown in Bollywood films has multiplied the sexual crimes in the capital city of the country.

He then mentioned why he had recommended for Turkish blockbuster Ertuğrul to be aired on Pakistani television as he wanted to prove that Islamic and historical family shows could be popular in the country too.

Calls for chemical castration of rapists

Reacting to the motorway gang-rape case, PM Imran called for rapists to be castrated chemically so that they cannot carry out the crime again in the future.

"It [rape] should be graded like murder, first degree and second degree," he said, speaking to anchor Moeed Pirzada for a private news channel. "Chemical castration should take place. I have been reading up on it, it happens in many countries," added PM Imran.

Speaking about the motorway rape incident, the prime minister said that it has shaken the entire nation as everyone felt that it could happen to their wives and daughters.

PM Imran said that when he first became prime minister, he was shocked to receive a briefing from the Islamabad IG who told him that sex crimes were on the rise against women and children.

The premier said that there were three ways to deal with cases of rape and sexual abuse, starting first with registering sex offenders and paedophiles.

He stated the example of foreign countries where pedophiles — after a proven history of sexually abusing children again after being released from jail — were properly registered and tracked by governments.

PM Imran said that the second step through which the government could deal with rapists and child sexual abusers was to hand them exemplary punishments.

"They should be hanged on chowks," he said. "Because they ruin children's lives and their parents [lives]. You don't even know how often these cases occur as they are under-reported," he added. "They should be hanged publicly".

However, PM Imran said that the government later came to the conclusion that the action of publicly hanging rapists would not be "internationally acceptable" as Pakistan was accorded the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) status by the EU which could be revoked.