J&K plans life term for prostitution

SRINAGAR: Jammu and Kashmir's government said on Thursday it would bring in legislation to make prostitution punishable by a maximum penalty of life term in prison as it sought to defuse a row over a sex ring.

At present prostitution carries a one-to-three-year penalty for the first offence and a two-to-five year term for a second offence under the state's Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act.

"Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and the government want to enhance the punishment to life imprisonment by providing necessary provisions to the present act," J&K deputy chief minister Muzaffar Beigh said.

"We shall bring in new legislation under which violators of the act would be awarded the punishment of life imprisonment," he said in a statement.

Authorities last month unearthed a sex ring involving more than 40 women whose clients allegedly included politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen in the conservative Muslim-majority state.

There have been big public protests in the state, where an Islamic insurgency has been raging for 16 years, demanding the release of the names of the women and the clients.

The state chief minister earlier this month asked the federal Central Bureau of Investigation to take over the case, which came to light when amateur pornographic films began circulating in the state.