Death clinic at our doorstep

Rajev Bhatia in Chandigarh

We know the girl child is still unwanted in various homes. We know tears are shed at her birth — in public or in private. But it still comes as a shock when someone wants to get her killed in the womb. A phone call the other day confirmed the fear. A friend was on the line. He asked me to come to Baltana. He said he had a scoop for me — a clinic was illegally conducting sex determination tests there. I drove to the place and tried to chat with a vendor near the clinic and slowly inched towards the security guard at the gate. They hesitated, but when I told them that a couple I knew wanted to go in for prenatal sex determination, they spilled the beans. 

They revealed that sex determination was a common practice at the clinic. I wanted to be sure of the goings-on and, a few days later, sent decoy customers to the clinic. The couple approached an attendant and sought an appointment. The man asked the two to wait.

A few minutes later, the couple again went to the attendant and asked if there was any chance of sex determination test at the clinic. The attendant refused bluntly at first. When the couple insisted that it had a “family problem” and that it will help to know the child’s gender, he told the couple to come after Diwali as the doctor concerned was not in town. He also told them to come late at night and not divulge any details of the clinic to anybody. Diwali is less than a month away. They won’t go back, but there are many who will.

Sex determination is banned under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act, 1994, yet the practice is rampant.