At the Panga press conference in Mumbai, Kangana Ranaut was asked about senior lawyer Indira Jaising’s remarks urging Nirbhaya’s mother, Asha Devi, to pardon the convicts on death row for the 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder case. To which Kangana replied, “That lady (Jaising) should be kept in jail with those convicts for four days. She needs it. Women like them give birth to these kind of monsters and murderers. It’s women like these who sympathise with such murderers.”
Jaising took to Twitter on 17 January, requesting Asha Devi to follow the example of interim Congress President Sonia Gandhi, “ who forgave Nalini (one of former PM Rajiv Gandhi’s assassins) and said she didn’t not want the death penalty for her.”
Asha Devi on 18 January, hit out at the senior lawyer for making such a request. “Who is Indira Jaising to give me such a suggestion? The whole country wants the convicts to be executed. Just because of people like her, justice is not done with rape victims,” Asha Devi told ANI.
At the press conference, Kangana was also asked a question about her statements being misconstrued. The context being referred to was her answer to Saif Ali’s Khan ‘concept of India' remark.
To which Kangana replied, “I read some headlines which said ‘lashed out’ and things like that. It seemed like I had spoken harshly about what Saif had said. However, I was just expressing my point of view. If Saif was entitled to his opinion, so am I. Sometimes media tends to sensationalise things, but the tastes of our readers are also like that. If I am asked a question and people expect me to stay quiet that is not going to happen.”
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