Union Minister Uma Bharti told a large crowd while campaigning in Uttar Pradesh's Bulandshahr on Thursday that she made rapists "beg for forgiveness" when she was Chief Minister.

The Times of India reports: In a startling and graphic revelation, Bharti claimed that she had got rapists tortured during her tenure as chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, and had let survivors watch.

Addressing a rally in Agra, Bharti, while referring to the Bulandshahr gang rape of a woman and her daughter by robbers in August 2016, said, "The rapists should be hung upside down and beaten till their skin comes off. Salt and chilly should be rubbed on their wounds, so that they scream for their lives. That is what I had got done when I was chief minister (of Madhya Pradesh from 2003 to 2004)."


When a police officer objected, she shared, "I told him people who behave like 'danav' (demons) cannot have Manavadhikar (human rights). Their heads should be cut off like Ravana's."

Uma Bharati, who is Water Resources Minister in the central government, is known for her intemperate pronouncements.