Mumbai-based fashion photographer Raj Shetye released his photo series The Wrong Turn last week. It depicts a lone Indian woman surrounded by men on a bus, fending off their advances.
"It is not based on Nirbhaya," Shetye told BuzzFeed in a phone call, when asked if this series was meant to depict the December 2012 New Delhi gang rape.
"This is in no way meant to glamorize the act, which was very bad," Shetye told BuzzFeed. "It's just a way of throwing light on it."
"The message I would like to give is that it doesn't matter who the girl is," he said. "It doesn't depend on which class she belonged in — it can happen to anyone."
Several people have pointed out — and are outraged by — the images' thematic similarities to the Nirbhaya case:
This is a screenshot of the comment thread under photographer Fabien Charuau's Facebook post about The Wrong Turn.
Shetye allegedly defended himself against critics in this Facebook comment:
But nearly nobody's buying it:
Some people don't care either way:
And a lot of people are talking about it:
When asked about such reactions, Shetye told BuzzFeed that he just feels satisfied to have started a conversation.
The pictures were originally posted on Shetye's Behance page, but appear to have since been taken down.