NEW DELHI: Senior lawyer and Rajya Sabha member KTS Tulsi on Friday introduced a bill in the Upper House for amending the Indian Penal Code to make sexual crimes gender neutral by including men and transgenders in addition to women who are vulnerable to such offences.

The proposed bill called the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2018 seeks to replace the word "man" with "whoever" in the text of the existing law to make it inclusive of all the genders.

The proposed bill said "...provide for effective protection of the Constitutional Rights of all persons vulnerable to sexual exploitation and offences, to punish acts of sexual assault and rape of all persons including but not limited to men and transgender persons in addition to the protection afforded to women under the existing penal laws and punish offenders of any sex or gender thereto."

Read the full text of the bill

The bill also called for the insertion of a definition of "modesty" in the existing law.

"Modesty is an attribute which attaches to the personality with regard to commonly held belief of morality, decency and integrity of speech and behaviour, in any man, woman or a transgender," the copy of the bill read.