Indian man arrested in Bangalore for being gay By Imran Qureshi

BBC Hindi Published duration 29 October 2014

image copyright AFP image caption A 153-year-old colonial law describes same-sex relationships as an "unnatural offence"

A man has been arrested in Bangalore after his wife realised one year into their marriage that he was gay and having relationships with men.

The identities of the Bangalore couple involved have not been made public.

Senior police officials describe the arrest, that uses Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), as a rare one.

The penal clause, from a 153-year-old British colonial law, makes gay sex punishable with life imprisonment. It has been criticised by activists.

Last December, India's Supreme Court overturned a high court verdict that had termed the archaic British law unconstitutional.

image copyright AFP image caption The Supreme Court has left it to Parliament to change the law governing homosexuality

Sandip Patil, deputy commissioner of police, Central Division, Bangalore, told BBC Hindi: "We think it is one of the first cases to come up under this section after the Supreme Court's verdict last year."

The story of the 32-year-old engineer is a classic case of societal pressures hurting individuals to the point of causing trauma.

He married his dentist wife in November 2013 but the couple did not live together for the first six months. He worked in Mysore and she worked in Bangalore.

CCTV footage

Six months later, when he was transferred to Bangalore, the couple lived under the same roof but slept in different rooms, according to the police.

"The wife got suspicious about his behaviour because he did not have [a] physical relationship with her. She got more suspicious when she realised that her husband would return home with male friends in her absence," Mr Patil said.

"The wife fixed CCTV cameras in the house, collected evidence for unnatural sex and filed a complaint with the police. We have arrested him," he added.

image copyright AFP image caption Many religious and political groups have opposed decriminalisation of gay sex

A complaint of cheating has also been filed against the parents, "but the police has not arrested them because we are still investigating," the police officer said.

Dr Vivek Benegal, Professor of Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), is not surprised by this case.

"There are many people who are still being forced to marry because of social pressure. Society really did not give him a choice," he said.

"The man cannot be blamed. Neither can the woman be blamed. We can only blame the social structure. They have been forced to formalise a lie.''

Dr Benegal added: "It is so tragic that in an era when science has proved that sexual orientation is not a vice, society should be forcing zebras to be horses.''

The Supreme Court had left it to Parliament to either repeal or amend the law governing homosexuality.

The decision sparked off a huge debate. Many in the Congress Party, which was leading the coalition government at the time, wanted to repeal the law. However, the then-opposition BJP (which is now the ruling party), was opposed to a repeal.