Scores of men under the aegis of Centre for Men’s Rights and supported by a few women staged a demonstration in Mysuru on Tuesday demanding the scrapping of Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code, Domestic Violence Act 2005 and similar laws allegedly said to suffer from a gender bias.

The demonstrators raised slogans against the law and said most of them were victims of the misuse of Section 498A under which a woman can file a complaint of dowry harassment and the accused could be taken into custody by the police immediately without sufficient evidence or investigation.

The Centre, which aims to promote men’s rights and prevent the misuse of law, said that it will also work to reduce suicide rate of men by promoting laws “which do not marginalize men or undermine their role in families and society”.

The activists claimed that there were nearly 2 lakh false cases filed under 498A in two years which made men vulnerable. Suresh Kumar Jain, one of the activists said the Government should constitute a National Commission for Men to study the problems faced by men and promote their welfare. “The suicide rates of married men were on a high and 98 per cent of the cases filed under Section 498A were false”, according to the Centre for Men’s Rights.