Gender test racket in Kharar busted, 4 held

Our Correspondent

Mohali, August 26

Four persons were arrested after an alleged sex determination racket was unearthed at a private hospital at Kharar today.

The arrested persons are Sarabjit Kaur, a resident of Gillco Valley, Kharar, Gurmeet Kaur, a relative of a woman who had come for a sex determination test, Sikandar Singh (55), a resident of Bhagta Bhai Ka village in Bathinda district, and Balwinder Singh from Rohan village in Sirsa district.

SHO of the Kharar City police station Vijay Kumar said five persons were booked under Sections 420, 511 and 34 of the IPC and various Sections of the PNDT Act and the Indian Medical Council Act. Four of them had been arrested while the fifth was yet to be traced. The machine used to carry out the test had also been sealed. The case was registered on a complaint of Dr Manraj Singh, SMO in charge of the Kharar Civil Hospital.

He said Dr Viresh Bhushan, Dr Raj Kumar and Dr Rajesh Chaudhary, Deputy Civil Surgeons from Sirsa, Haryana, had got information that a person named Meet was allegedly getting sex determination tests done at a hospital at Kharar and was charging Rs 30,000 per case. He said Meet had also allegedly involved Sikandar Singh and Balwinder Singh in the alleged racket.

A trap was laid by sending a decoy customer. Health officials followed the decoy customer and reached Kharar.

Dr Manraj Singh, SMO, said officials from the Haryana Health Department informed the local health officials about the raid after which a team led by him and another one from the Mohali Civil Surgeon’s office reached the private hospital. A raid was conducted and Rs 20,000 taken from the decoy customer was allegedly recovered from a suspect.

He said the Haryana officials’ team, along with the Haryana police, reached Kharar around 6 am and he and the Mohali Civil Surgeon’s team reached around 7 am. He said the decoy customer, along with two persons, had started from Sirsa last night.

Mohali Civil Surgeon Ranjit Kaur Guru said a woman was allegedly caught red-handed doing the sex determination test. She had allegedly performed two such tests at the hospital today. She said the centre had been registered in the name of a sonologist, who was not present in the hospital at the time of the raid.