CPM MLA A Soundararajan to move private member’s bill to prevent ‘honour killings’

Chennai: With the state witnessing a series of 'honour killings’, CPI (M) legislative party leader A. Soundararajan has decided to move a private member’s bill to prevent honour killings and punish those involved in it.

In a statement here, Soundararajan said he had submitted a private member bill “the Prevention of Crimes in the Name of ‘Honour’ and Tradition Bill 2015” to the Assembly secretariat. “I want to bring to focus the important issue facing the State. I will also try to get it through in the Assembly when it meets for the winter session,” he told DC.

He said a spate of murders and crimes against inter- caste couples or inter religious couples in the name of ‘honour’ had been reported in the recent past and are continuing to be reported.

However, the bill said no law, which punished crimes in the name of honour existed in India. There were also no laws which punished illegal and often barbaric actions of community panchayats or other caste or religious associations.

Some offences under the IPC were invoked sometimes to book offenders in these cases but these offences did not cover the entire gamut of illegal actions perpetrated in the name of honour or prescribe adequate punishment for these barbaric acts, the Bill said.