At least 1,500 foetuses killed in last 3 years by accused: B'luru top cop

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: As the investigation into the sex deter mination and foeticide racket continues, the city police commissioner on Tuesday revealed that nearly 242 foetuses were killed in the last three months and a total of 1,500 foetuses have been killed in the last three years by the accused persons.

At least nine people, including two doctors, have been arrested so far in the sex determination and foeticide racket busted by the city police in mid-October, Bengaluru Police Commissioner B Dayananda said.

Illegal sex determination tests were carried out on pregnant women and female foetuses were medically terminated, the senior official said, adding that a paediatrician, whose mother is also a doctor, and an Ayurveda doctor were the key players behind the gang.

"The Byappanahalli police arrested Dr Thulasiram from Chennai, Dr Chandan Ballal and his wife Meena from Mysuru, Rizma, a receptionist at a private hospital in Mysuru, and Nissar, a lab technician, on Saturday. The arrested accused were part of a major sex determination and female foeticide nexus that had scanned hundreds of pregnant women over the last two years and killed several foetuses every month," Dayananda said.

Further he explained that the accused used to carry out the racket in a jaggery production shed in Mandya and in some private hospitals in Mysuru and Bengaluru's Byappanahalli.

The police chief further stated that those arrested revealed that they had been operating in Bengaluru, Mandya and Mysuru and used to charge between Rs 20,000 and Rs 25,000 per prenatal sex determination and an additional Rs 50,000 to terminate the pregnancy if the foetus was female.

The matter came to light in October when Baiyyappanahalli police arrested four people Shivananje Gowda, Viresh, Naveen Kumar and Nayan Kumar while they were carrying a pregnant woman for the sex determination test.

These accused used to take pregnant women whose family members did not want to have a girl child to a house in Mandya where they would be scanned by doctors to determine the gender of the foetus they carried.

If the foetus turned out to be female, they would abort it, police sources revealed. Brokers used to approach pregnant women and ask them whether they wished to determine the sex of the foetus.

After getting their approval, the agents would bring the women to the 'abortion facility'.