Sirsa’s shame: Foetal sex tests at doorstep for Rs15,000

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Sirsa, December 21

In bad news for a state notorious for its skewed sex-ratio of 881, a trend of sex determination tests at the doorstep has come to light in Sirsa. This is despite stern implementation of the Pre-Conception and Pre Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PC-PNDT) Act.

It’s a five-minute process: A “doctor” comes to client’s doorstep with a portable ultrasound machine the size of an iPad. He tells the gender of the unborn child for a price ranging between Rs10,000 and Rs15,000.

The practice is in the knowledge of the district health authorities. Civil Surgeon Dr SK Nain said an attempt was made to catch this “doctor” by preparing a decoy customer sometime back, but the information was leaked and the effort failed.

The Tribune reporter met a man who had used the “service” for his wife recently. He was told about it by a paramedic working at a local ultrasound centre. “I visited the ultrasound centre for a sex determination test when my wife was pregnant. The centre owner refused to conduct the test, but a paramedic told me he could help. He took my mobile phone number and told me he would call me up when the ‘doctor’ comes,” he said.

The “doctor’s” modus operandi is simple. He comes to Sirsa after his touts have prepared five to 10 cases. The tout calls the “client” to a landmark in the town, usually a famous sweetshop in Sirsa. From there, the tout accompanies the client to his house, has a look and leaves.

After some time, the “doctor” accompanied by a helper arrives at the client’s house in a Maruti Swift car. Three motorcyclists stand guard at the street corners for movement of officials of the Health Department, police or a government vehicle.

Once in the house, the doctor takes less than five minutes to determine the sex of the foetus on the battery-operated portable ultrasound machine. Sex determination at the doorstep is continuing in other parts of Haryana too.

The state Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had arrested seven persons and recovered 20 portable, made-in-China ultrasound machines from Manesar, Delhi, Kaithal and Bhiwani in January and February.

GL Singal, former Joint Commissioner of the FDA, who retired from services on November 30 and had led these operations, said, “We nabbed three persons at Jamalpur in Bhiwani with a portable machine on a tip-off and arrested another quack with a machine in Kaithal on the basis of information gathered from them. After their interrogation, the FDA raided a shop in Delhi’s Chandni Chowk with the help of the police and arrested its owner Hitesh Bhatia. On Bhatia’s tip-off, the FDA went to a distributor in Manesar and purchased a machine for Rs1.5 lakh. It was then that the FDA busted a racket and recovered 17 machines after the police arrested the distributors Satnam and Gautam.”

Singal said these machines were 6”x4” in size and could fit in the pocket of a coat. The man arrested in Jamalpur had hidden the machine in a pocket. These quacks too were found giving their services at their doorsteps, he said.

Deputy Civil Surgeon Dr Viresh Bhushan said health authorities had taken effective steps to check sex determination and it was due to these efforts that the sex ratio of newborn children had increased from 887 per 1,000 last year to 897 in Sirsa.