Gender test: Barnala hospital raided, 7 held

Tribune News Service

Sirsa, July 7

A joint team of the Haryana Health Department and Sirsa police today raided a private hospital in Barnala town of Punjab and nabbed an untrained nurse and her six accomplices carrying out sex-determination tests.

Sources said Ajay Sharma, an inspector in the CID wing of the police, had gathered inputs that the nurse was carrying out prenatal sex-determination tests from a machine of the hospital in the absence of a doctor couple, who had gone abroad after sealing the machine.

Sharma brought this to Deputy Commissioner (DC) Sharandeep Kaur Brar’s notice.

The DC constituted a team along with a decoy customer, a pregnant woman police constable, for raiding the hospital.

The team struck a deal for conducting the test for Rs 30,000. When the nurse took the woman as well as another person accompanying her to the hospital, another pregnant woman, Amarjit Kaur, was already there for the test.

As soon as Gurmel Kaur accepted money and performed the test on the decoy customer, the raiding team arrested her.

“Gurmel is class 8th pass and had been conducting sex-determination tests for long. Our police party has arrested her as well as six others — Ramdas, a tout from Dabwali, Gurmeet and Jagtar, both touts from Moga, Amarjit Kaur, who had 

come for her sex-determination test, and Manpreet and Baljit Kaur, both of whom were accompanying her,” said Brar.