Rajasthan team busts inter-State gang conducting sex tests

In a well-coordinated decoy operation, the Rajasthan government's Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Cell has busted an inter-State gang allegedly conducting sex determination tests in the Mathura town of Uttar Pradesh. A resident of Alwar and a fake doctor from Mathura have been arrested.

State Special Secretary (Medical and Health) Naveen Jain, who is also the Appropriate Authority under the PCPNDT Act, said here on Thursday that the operation was planned to catch red-handed a woman, Seema Chaudhary, who as an agent was regularly taking pregnant women to Mathura for sex determination test of foetus.

Money recovered

Another woman, Sneh Lata, used to pose as a doctor at a hospital in Mathura, where the ultrasonography tests were conducted. The PCPNDT Cell sent a bogus client to trap the members of the gang and arrested the two women in Mathura and recovered money paid as fees to them earlier this week.

During search, the team also found a country-made pistol and cartridges in the so-called hospital, for which a separate criminal case under the Arms Act was registered. The unregistered ultrasound machine was seized and Rs.18,000 were recovered from the two women.

Mr. Jain said this was the fourth inter-State decoy operation conducted by the PCPNDT Cell this year, the earlier three having been done in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat. The informer and a pregnant woman, who volunteered to go for the test, will be given cash reward.