No, Abhijit Banerjee has not defended the Nirbhaya rapists

A post is being shared on social media with a claim that Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee had justified the rape of Nirbhaya in 2012 saying that her ‘rapists had no access to sex hence they raped’. Let’s try to analyze the claim made in the post.

Claim: Abhijit Banerjee has defended the Nirbhaya rapists.

Fact: Abhijit’s article on rapes were published in October-2012 whereas Nirbhaya rape incident took place in December-2012. In his article, Abhijit has explicitly said that ‘none of this should be read as a defence of rape’. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.   

In the photo posted, it can be seen that the article was published by ‘TFIPOST’. So, when searched for that article, it was found that ‘TFIPOST’ has now deleted the article from its website. The archived version of that article can be read here.

In the ‘TFIPOST’ article, a link to Abhijit Banerjee’s 2012 ‘Hindustan Times’ article can be found. Abhijit’s article on rapes was published by the ‘Hindustan Times’ on 30 October 2012, whereas the Nirbhaya rape incident took place in December-2012. So, Abhijit’s comment on rapes before the Nirbhaya rape incident is being twisted to portray that he justified the Nirbhaya rape.

In his article, he commented on the inequality of access to sex but he also explicitly stated that ‘none of this should be read as a defence of rape’.

To sum it up, Abhijit Banerjee has not defended the Nirbhaya rapists.

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