Mulayam shocks by defending Mumbai rape convicts

"Boys make mistake," said Yadav and even said that the girl complained of rape because she had differences with the boys.

Mulayam Singh Yadav was speaking against the new stringent anti-rape laws under when the Mumbai gang rape convicts were tried. He said the boys should not be hanged.

A Mumbai court last week sentenced to death three men accused of raping a photo journalist inside an abandoned mill in Mumbai last year August as they were found repeat offenders and were charged  under the amended stringent anti-rape laws under.

This is the first such verdict in India in which rapists were sentenced to death for a repeat offence.

Principal Sessions Judge Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi  pronounced the sentencing of the three - Vijay Jadhav, Qasim Bengali and Salim Ansari - who have been identified as repeat offenders since they had earlier assaulted a telephone operator too in the same Shakti Mills area of Mumbai but had gone unpunished.

The rapists were charged under section 376 E of Indian Penal Code. The maximum punishment under this section is death. The court said in respect of Section 376 E that the "legislature wants to ensure that such tendency should be crushed."

The three accused in the case are the first in India to be charged under this stringent section which was added after the 2012 December fatal gang-rape of a Delhi girl inside a bus.

The young photojournalist was gangraped on 22 Aug 2013 inside the mill area when she entered it for a shoot. His male colleague was tied up as she was assaulted by the men.

Five men, including a minor, were accused of the attack. The culprits were charged with rape, conspiracy, common intention and unnatural sex.

Later it was found that they had also raped another telephone operator in the mill premises.