Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Friday clarified that his remark on crime against women has been wrongly construed as being insensitive. He spoke about factors which hurt tourism in India and one of the factors mentioned was crime against women. The BJP leader said that he himself thinks that these issues are very sensitive and should not be trivialised. Jaitley’s clarification came in the backdrop of his remark at a tourism conference in Delhi on Thursday in which he was reportedly quoted as saying that the Nirbhaya gangrape of 16 December was a small incident that cost crores of rupees in potential tourism earnings.
Jaitley said: ‘I regret that the speech was misconstrued in certain sections, but it was not my intention. I had spoken at length as to factors which hurt tourism in India and one of factors I mentioned was crime against women. I have spoken on how crime can hurt tourism.’
‘I had strongly emphasised on crime against women in India. I am sensitive to these issues myself and there is no question of trivialising any incident,’ he added. The Congress on Friday criticised the government for being insensitive to the issue. Party leader, Rashid Alvi alleged that it is very unfortunate that a union minister has termed rape of women as a minor issue.
Jaitley said: ‘I regret that the speech was misconstrued in certain sections, but it was not my intention. I had spoken at length as to factors which hurt tourism in India and one of factors I mentioned was crime against women. I have spoken on how crime can hurt tourism.’
‘I had strongly emphasised on crime against women in India. I am sensitive to these issues myself and there is no question of trivialising any incident,’ he added. The Congress on Friday criticised the government for being insensitive to the issue. Party leader, Rashid Alvi alleged that it is very unfortunate that a union minister has termed rape of women as a minor issue.