Interstate gender test racket busted; 5 arrested

Tribune News Service

Faridabad, August 8

A joint operation by officials of the district’s Health Department and their counterparts in New Delhi has led to the arrest of five persons involved in the illegal pre-natal sex determination racket.

The team also recovered Rs 32,000 from the owner of an ultrasound centre in New Delhi. A case under the PNDT Act has been lodged. Revealing this, a spokesperson for the district Health Department said on a tip-off about a racket being run in the Ranhola area of Vikas Nagar locality in New Delhi, a raid was conducted on Saturday. “The accused were charging a huge amount from customers coming from other states.” Posing as the kin of the decoy patient, a member of the raid team contacted a woman tout and fixed the deal at Rs 32,000 for the test. Before taking the decoy patient to Balaji Hospital at Ranhola, one of the touts identified as Poonam took her to Sunlife Lab, where a person named Dr Ankit got her ultrasound test done. They revealed the sex of the foetus in coded language, saying ‘All is okay’ meaning that it was boy.