India’s Daughter, the controversial Indo-British documentary that reconstructs the December 12, 2012, gangrape in Delhi and includes interviews with one of the convicts in the case, was scheduled to be screened on NDTV24x7 on International Women’s Day on March 8. Of the six convicts, one is a juvenile who is serving a three-year sentence. The others have been given the death sentence, which they are appealing in the Supreme Court.

On Tuesday, the Delhi High Court issued an order restricting the media from broadcasting, publishing or transmitting any portions of the interview with Mukesh Singh, who is currently lodged at Tihar Jail. Singh’s brother, Ram Singh, who was also convicted, allegedly hanged himself in March 2013.

The documentary, directed and produced by British national Leslee Udwin, was screened for select journalists at a preview on March 3. As has been reported, Mukesh Singh, who has been convicted in the case, has blamed the victim from inviting the attack on herself. However, the court order prohibits his remarks to the filmmakers from being reproduced.

Here are edited transcripts of what the film’s other key characters said.

Defence lawyer ML Sharma, who represented Mukesh Singh until April

"The moment she came out from her house with a boy who was neither her husband nor her brother, she left her morality and reputation as a doctor as well as girl’s morality in the house and she came out just like a woman.

A female is just like a flower, it gives a good looking, very softness, performance, pleasant. But on the other hand a man is just like a thorn, strong, tough enough. A flower always needs protection. If that flower is in a gutter, it is spoilt. If you put that flower in a temple it will be worshipped."

The victim’s father
"She had six months of internship. After that, all our sorrows would end. Happiness was a few steps ahead.

To call them [the convicts] human is to give humanity a bad name. if we call them monsters, even monsters have limits. These [men] were the devil.

[Reaction to the fact that the juvenile will be let out after serving a three-year sentence]: We are like a bird whose wings have been cut. We cannot fly. We live with fear and anxiety."

The victim’s mother
"She said, ‘Mum, dad, now you don’t have to worry any more. Your daughter has become a doctor. Everything will be fine. It seems God didn’t like this. He ended everything there.

Whenever there is a crime, the girl is blamed, she should not go out. She shouldn't roam around so late or wear such clothes. It's the boys who should be accused and asked why they do this."

The juvenile’s mother
"He’d been gone for three years. I thought he was dead. When the police came, I found out that he is still alive.

I am a farm labourer. If we get work, we work… The dishes haven’t been washed. There is no point. There is nothing to eat."

Sandeep Goyal, jail psychiatrist for the convicts
"They all [the convicts] actually came from a very deprived condition, where their surroundings are not a very good place, overcrowding. That’s a very common scene, where women have been tortured, beaten or sexually abused by their male partners or husbands… And that is what makes them again and again surprised, ‘Why me?’

I would say as a psychiatrist that they are actually normal human beings with anti-social traits in them, which actually manifested very badly at that time. They have been doing such crimes and easily getting away with that… They don’t think of the other person as a human being. The negative cultural values about a woman are also very, very important."

Puneeta Devi, wife of convict Akshay Thakur
"I have full faith in my husband, I am sure he would never commit such a crime. Misfortune will pass.

Am I not a daughter of this country? Don’t I have the right to live? Will there be no more rapes in Delhi? Will you hang all the rapists?"

Kavita Krishnan, Secretary of the All India Progressive Women’s Association
"Immediately, almost from day one, it had stopped being about this case alone. It had become about rape culture and about women’s generalised anger against being told that they could do something to actually remain safe.

It is always difficult to tell why one particular case, and why… it is like a dam bursting. It doesn’t happen out of one case alone. I think it’s an accumulated anger that bursts out."

Justice (retired) Leila Seth, one of three members of the committee headed by former Chief Justice JS Verma after the gang-rape to look into crimes against women
"The Constitution provides for equality. It hasn’t happened because the men don’t allow it to happen… Also it is because of the historical tradition of patriarchy which has been over the years embedded into men and into women."

Amod Kanth, head of Prayas, non-governmental organisation for rape victims and juveniles
"This boy [the convicted juvenile] was like millions of Indian children, who are like street children, toiling to survive, sometimes working in a dhaba…sometimes working on a bus…This boy, in my opinion, did not have any serious aberrations. This boy had suffered endless misery in life. He was a child in need of care and protection, where the family couldn’t even look after the child.

Public opinion should not become the reason for any kind of conviction or even death sentences at times. I don’t think we belong to that kind of social order, or that kind of country… Many countries are like that. ‘Hang the person from a pole.’ ‘Kill the main straight away.’ ‘Cut his hands, throw him away.’ That kind of thing doesn’t happen in this country. It is a democratic country. And a very liberal country from that point of view… the present demand for a death sentence in many cases is not in the spirit of India’s history."

AP Singh, defence lawyer of convicts Vinay Sharma and Akshay Kumar Singh
"If very important, if very necessary, she should go outside. But she should go with the family members like uncle, father, mother, grandfather, grandmother etc. She should not go in night hours with her boyfriend.

There are a number of criminal cases of murder, robbery, rape pending against 250 Members of Parliament. Sitting Members of Parliament. But their cases are not tried by fast-track courts, their cases are not tried in day-to-day hearings. Why? If you want to give a message to society against rape, against murder, against robbery, then you should start from your neck."