A joint team of PC&PNDT officials from Haryana’s Jhajjar and Charkhi Dadri busted an interstate sex determination racket operating in Gaya, Bihar, leading to the arrest of four persons, including two Haryana-based agents.
Those who were apprehended included Ramashray Prasad, Gulshan Kumar, Surender and Rakesh Yadav.
Additional Chief Secretary, Health and Family Welfare, Dr Sumita Misra has confirmed that the cases have been registered against all four accused under provisions of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994 (PC&PNDT), the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), and the National Medical Commission (NMC) Act.
The District Appropriate Authorities (DAA) of Jhajjar and Charkhi Dadri had received specific information last week that Surender and Rakesh Yadav, both residents of Chhuchhakwas village in Jhajjar district, were taking pregnant women from Jhajjar, Dadri and adjoining areas to Bihar for illegal fetal sex determination in exchange for money.
Acting on the input, the DAA, Jhajjar, constituted a special team comprising Dr Sandeep Kumar, Nodal Officer (PC-PNDT), Dr Basant Kumar Dubey and Vinod Kumar from Jhajjar, along with Dr Udaybha and Dr Sandeep from Charkhi Dadri.
Thereafter, a pregnant woman was deployed as a decoy customer, accompanied by a man posing as her husband.
The accused, Surender and Rakesh Yadav, allegedly agreed to conduct the illegal sex determination test for Rs 50,000 and called the decoy customer to Chhuchhakwas on the night of June 19.
The woman was then taken to Tikari town in Bihar’s Gaya district, with the joint PNDT teams following the vehicle from a safe distance.
On reaching Tikari, the accused took the woman to Shiv Shakti Ultrasound Centre, which was allegedly being run illegally. There, the centre operator, Ramashray Prasad and Gulshan Kumar, who allegedly posed as a sonologist, conducted an ultrasound examination and disclosed that the foetus was male.
The joint PNDT teams, assisted by officials of the Gaya district PNDT unit authorised by the District Magistrate of Gaya, raided the centre, raided the centre and arrested the four on the spot.
During the raid, the teams recovered an illegal ultrasound machine from the premises. All four were subsequently handed over to the Tikari police station in Gaya district.
