New Delhi, July 28 - The vilest crimes are committed in the name of defending the honour of a family or a woman and 'we should hang our heads in shame' when such incidents take place in India in the 21st century, Home Minister P. Chidambaram said Tuesday.

'The vilest crimes are committed in the name of defending the honour of the family or women and we should hang our heads in shame when such incidents take place in India in the 21st century,' Chidambaram said. He was responding to a calling attention notice in the Rajya Sabha on the increasing incidents of honour killings and honour-related crimes in the country, especially a spate of incidents last week.

Holding that the state governments should do to more to prevent crimes against women, he said: 'I recoil with shame when I read in the newspapers that two teenagers - a Dalit boy and a Muslim girl - were brutally killed in a village near Meerut, Uttar Pradesh in the name of honour.'

'Or when I read that a young man, accompanied by a warrant officer was killed when he was on his way to fetch his wife from a village in Jind district, Haryana. Or when I read that a newly married couple in Delhi fear for their lives following a fatwa issued by a panchayat in Jhajjar district, Haryana,' the minister added.

Chidambaram specifically pointed to some caste panchayats that are known to approve of these killings and thus become accomplices in the violation of laws.