On the occasion of Women's Day, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Thursday proposed a bill in the Lok Sabha seeking to make stalking a non-bailable offence.
Tharoor further said that the proposal has been accepted by Home Minister Rajnath Singh.
"Stalking is an offence but is not non-bailable, I have proposed to make it a non-bailable offence. Home Minister has sympathetically accepted it. There's no political argument in this, it's for the welfare of women," Tharoor told media after the Budget Session.
Under the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013, stalking is a punishable offence under Section 354D of the IPC, with imprisonment of up to three years for first-time offenders.
However, as per this Act first offence of stalking is "bailable", implying the accused need not be produced before the court for seeking bail.
On Women's day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stressed the need to take steps to protect the girl child.
"Mothers-in-law should take the lead to protect the girl child, and the state governments should make efforts to create a mass movement to protect girl child," Modi said.
The prime minister was in Rajasthan to launch the National Nutrition Mission (NNM) and announced the expansion of the 'Beti Bachao Beti Padhao' programme.
"Mistakes committed by generations against the girl child has resulted in a kind of imbalance in society, and this needs to be corrected by new generations," Modi said on International Women's Day.
He also encouraged people to take up the task of protecting the girl child and treating them equally.
"Daughters are neglected and killed, and it results in an imbalance in society. Improvement does not come in just one generation, it takes time, but now we should decide that equal importance will be given to the girl child," he said.
(With inputs from agencies)
