Mandya: Govt initiatives fall flat as rackets snuff out lives of girl children

The arrest of three persons in Mandya district has yet again turned the attention toward the cancerous spread of female foeticide in Karnataka.

Shockingly, two of the arrested trio are government hospital employees at Pandavapura. Residents in Pandavapura had alerted officials after seeing a visibly pregnant woman check into a guest house in the area.

When the police and the health department conducted a raid on Sunday (May 5) night, they found syringes, medicines and other things meant to conduct a crude abortion.

The woman, a mother of two daughters, had come to the guest house, ironically run by the health department, to have the foetus removed after learning that her third child too would also be a girl.

“It appears there is a big female foeticide racket active in the region. Authorities will act firmly against those involved. Female foeticide is a social hazard,” Mandya Superintendent of Police N Yatish told the media.

After rescuing the pregnant woman, police arrested two employees of the Pandavapura taluk hospital and an employee of a private nursing home where sex determination tests were allegedly taking place.

Organised racket

N Chaluvarayaswamy, the Mandya district in-charge minister, admitted that the incidents of female foeticide continue to be reported despite the government’s efforts to end them.

“It looks like an organised racket is operating in the dark. There is an urgent need to bring stringent legislation to control this,” he told The Federal.

Although determining the sex of the fetus is illegal, sex-selective abortions continue in Karnataka due to a predominant cultural preference for male children.

According to the Pew Research Centre based on Indian official data, the lives some nine million unborn females were snuffed out in the country in 2000-2019.

Decline in child sex ratio

Writer-journalist Manjunatha Adde says the problem of female foeticide in Karnataka has surpassed that in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Bihar and Punjab.

According to Adde, the worst-hit places in Mandya district are Pandavapura, Madduru, Mandya, Srirangapatna, Nagamangala, Malavalli, and KR Pet taluks.

Karnataka recorded an alarming decline in child sex ratio from 947 in 2021 to 929 in 2022, according to official data. The ratio was 950 in rural areas and 946 in urban areas, according to the 2011 census.

Of the 31 districts in Karnataka, 22 have shown a decline in the sex ratio. In November 2023, the police busted a major female foeticide racket in Karnataka and arrested nine people including two doctors.

The police said the gang had allegedly carried out 242 abortions in just three months.

The police also arrested the owner of a hospital after an illegally-aborted female foetus was wrapped in a cover and dumped in a dustbin on the outskirts of Bengaluru.

‘Teens, students among majority of patients’

The hospital reportedly had been conducting sex determination tests and illegal abortions for two years now. Police said a majority of patients were teenagers and college students who got pregnant before marriage.

Police had earlier busted a female foeticide racket in Bengaluru, and arrested 13 people including doctors, lab technicians, nurses and agents.

Alarmed by the increase in the number of cases of female foeticide, the Karnataka government has entrusted the investigation of the cases pertaining to female foeticide to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

Findings of CID probe

The decision was taken by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah following an increase in cases of female foeticide in Mysuru, Mandya, and in and around Bengaluru city.

The CID has filed reports naming 19 suspects including three doctors. The agency seized portable scanning machines and other incriminating evidence from hospitals and medical centres during raids.

It was found that some of the suspects acted as touts and spread the word about sex determination in the villages, especially in the old Mysuru region.

A detailed report was submitted to the health department. It also identified loopholes in the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection-PCPNDT) Act.

“Even after implementation of the PCPNDT Act, over 4.6 lakh female foeticide cases have been reported between 2001 and 2003,” said Dr Vivek Dorai, deputy director of the health and family welfare department.

Admitting that the existing laws to prevent female foeticide in Karnataka were not being implemented in letter and spirit, state health minister Dinesh Gundu Rao has underlined the need for a new policy.