Dubai, June 18: Bollywood actor Irrfan Khan has stirred a controversy surrounding fellow actor Shiney Ahuja’s sexual assault charges, saying “90 per cent of married Indian women are raped at some point in their married life”.
The comment, in an interview, was condemned by women’s activists in India.
“Ninety per cent! I don’t think there is anything like that happening in India,” Mrinaltai Gore, a well-known social worker, told over the phone from Mumbai.
According to a 2006 survey in India, 2.5 per cent of married women experienced sexual abuse, she said.
Khan’s remarks come in the wake of Ahuja being charged with raping his housemaid.
Khan, who played the policeman in Slumdog Millionaire, said: “People have already convicted him (Ahuja) of the rape charges before he is even tried in the courts. I think that is unfair. And about whether it was consensual sex or not, I think 90 per cent of married Indian women are raped at some point in their married life. You know what I mean.”
Audrey D’Mello, Deputy Director of the Legal Centre at Mumbai-based Majlis, a non-governmental legal aid body that fights for women’s rights, said Khan’s statement was “surprising and unfortunate”.
-Agencies