The New York City-based International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) has issued a release expressing its sorrow over the reported decapitation of a young Indian man by a co-worker who apparently told police he ‘was ashamed’ after the two had sex.
According to 365Gay.com and other news sites, 18-year-old bakery worker Naushad Pathan confessed to stabbing and then beheading a male co-worker with whom he had just had sex. The body and head of the victim were found outside of Vadodara, India. IGLHRC blamed sodomy statutes as the primary culprit in promoting homophobia and human-rights abuses. India is one of 79 countries that have laws directed at or used to outlaw sex between people of the same gender; in nine of the nations, sodomy is punishable by death.
Paula Ettelbrick, IGLHRC’s executive director, said that ‘ [t] he idea that we live in a world in which sex could be so shameful that it would lead someone to commit such a violent act is incomprehensible.’