Patran, August 10
Even as the people of this town were still reeling under shock after a mass grave of unborn daughters was detected in a pit situated in the vicinity of local Sahib Hospital yesterday, the district health authorities today identified another pit, near the earlier one, in which about 200 to 300 female foetuses were suspected to be buried. The digging of the second pit would start tomorrow morning.
Official sources said that the district health authorities had also identified about 20 ultrasound centres in Haryana, which had been carrying out pre-natal sex determination tests and subsequently sending a significant number of pregnant women to Sahib Hospital for illegal abortions of female foetuses.
Though the district administration and health authorities were tight lipped about their plans on how to deal with these ultrasound centres, sources revealed that an effective operation would be launched jointly by the Punjab and Haryana Police departments shortly to nab the culprits, who had been supplying customers to Sahib hospital for illegal abortions of female fetuses. These centres were charging Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000 from their customers for carrying out pre-natal sex determination tests.
These ultrasound centres, which were supplying the customers to Sahib hospital, run by a quack couple, identified as Pritam Singh and his wife Amarjit Kaur, had been running in Tohana, Kaithal, Jakhal, Ambala, Raipur Rani and Nariangarh areas of the Haryana. Some other ultrasound centres, located in various towns of Patiala and Sangrur districts, were also identified, which too had been sending pregnant women with female fetuses to Sahib Hospital, located on Patran-Patiala main road, for illegal abortions.
Dr V. S. Mohi, Civil surgeon, Patiala, said that three different teams of the Health Department, along with the officials of other departments, would start digging of the second pit tomorrow.
He had also sought explanation from Dr I. C. Taneja, Senior Medical Officer, Civil Hospital, Patran, asking him to explain the reasons that why he (Dr Taneja) could not detect the illegal abortions taking place in the Sahib hospital for the past one year or so. He added that detection of one more grave of female foetuses had also embarrassed the district health authorities also.
Mr Munish Kumar, SDM, Patran, who had been coordinating the operation and Dr Mohi said that the health authorities had constituted three teams for this operation. Ambulances would also be pressed into service while digging up the pit. Before the start of digging, the toxic gases from that pit, which was sealed about one year back, would be removed. Mr Kumar said that they might face some problems while digging out the pit as some sewerage lines were passing over that pit. He added that utmost care would be taken during the digging operation so that no untoward incident could take place.
Dr Mohi said that it also came into his notice that the accused couple had also been using acid in the pit after burying the foetuses and other related material in the pit following illegal abortions to speed up their decomposition.
