New Delhi, Aug 22 (IANS): The Congress Friday hit out at Finance Minister Arun Jaitley over his remark terming the Delhi rape a "small incident", and called it "horrendous".

"An idiotic and horrendous statement, he must apologise to women of nation," Congress leader Shobha Oza said.

Similarly, Congress leader Rashid Alvi said: "If any woman of the nation is raped, it is a disgrace to the nation."

Jaitley while addressing a conference of state tourism ministers Thursday had said: "...one small incident of rape in Delhi advertised world over is enough to cost us millions of dollars in terms of lower tourism."

However, after facing flak from the opposition, Jaitley Friday said that his speech was "misconstrued".

"I regret that speech was misconstrued in certain sections. It was never my intention...I am sensitive to these issues myself, no question of trivialising any incident...spoken on how crime can hurt tourism," he said.

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