Interstate gender test racket busted, 4 held

Tribune News Service

Faridabad, August 22

A joint operation by the officials of the district Health Department and the Delhi Government on Saturday led to the arrest of four persons involved in a racket of illegal prenatal sex determination.

The team recovered an amount of Rs 32,000 from the accused. A case under the PNDT Act has been lodged.

A spokesperson of the district Health Department said the raid was conducted after information that some persons had been involved in sex determination in a New Delhi colony and had been charging a huge amount from customers belonging to other states.

One of the members of the raid team contacted a tout posing as the kin of a patient and fixed the deal at Rs 85,000 for the test. The touts, including two women, met the decoy patient at a spot in Delhi and took her to a private diagnostic centre in an auto-rickshaw to Hari Nagar, where a woman doctor revealed the sex of the foetus immediately after an ultrasound test and without filing the mandatory form.

The team arrested the touts and recovered an amount of Rs 32,000 paid to them as advance, said Dr Randeep Singh, Civil Surgeon, who said the rest of the money would also be recovered. He said two of the accused were reported to be working as paramedics in a government hospital in New Delhi. The team was busy in legal formalities when the report last came in. The accused are yet to be identified.