The Indian government’s HIV/AIDS control body is backing demands for homosexuality to be legalised, saying that making it a crime is driving infections underground and hampering efforts to curb the virus.

The National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) filed a statement in the Delhi High Court on Wednesday supporting a petition by a local AIDS charity demanding that a 145-year-old law criminalising homosexuality be scrapped.

Many of India’s homosexuals hide their sexual orientation because of harassment by authorities, although arrests are rare.

“It (the law) can adversely contribute to pushing the infection underground and make risky sexual practices go unnoticed and unaddressed,” NACO said in the statement.

NACO said gays lacked safe places to meet and used public places such as railway stations which left them vulnerable to abuse by police, forcing them into hiding with poor access to condoms, health care and safe-sex information.

“The fear of harassment by law enforcement agencies leads to sex being hurried, leaving partners without the notion to consider safer sex practices,” it added.

In May, UNAIDS said there were an estimated 5.7 million Indians living with the disease at the end of 2005, more than any other country and ahead of South Africa’s 5.5 million cases.

Homosexuals, like prostitutes and injecting drug users, are considered high-risk groups. There are 2.5 million practising male homosexuals in India, NACO said, of whom around eight percent are thought to be HIV positive.

The anti-homosexuality law framed by British colonial rulers in 1861 makes gay sex punishable by up to 10 years in jail.

Activists say homosexuals fight an uphill struggle in a country where public hugging and kissing even among heterosexuals invites angry stares, lewd comments and even beatings.

“For the prevention of HIV/AIDS it is essential that there should be an enabling environment where the people involved in risky behaviour may be encouraged not to conceal information so that there are provided total access to services,” said NACO.

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Thomson Reuters Foundation