Uttar Pradesh minister Upendra Tiwari on Sunday said that while the sexual assault of minor girls was a reality, women above thirty often complain of rape after being in relationships for years, ANI reported.

“Rape cases are of different nature,” the minister of state (independent charge) for water resources was quoted as saying. “If there is a minor girl who has been raped, we consider it to be rape. But in some cases, we see married women, who are 30 to 35 years of age, that is another nature.”

He said women should complain about sexual assault when it happens “and not after years”, and added that the Adityanath government has been taking strict action in rape cases.

The minister allegedly made the remarks after being asked about the murder of a minor girl in Aligarh district, reports said. A number of social media users made false claims about the incident and said the girl had been raped before being brutally murdered, but the autopsy report showed that the girl had not been raped. The Aligarh Police also issued a clarification on the matter.

However, one of the accused booked for the murder of the two-and-a-half-year-old girl is allegedly a sex offender who has targeted minors in the past. The police have arrested four people till now.