E-Paper
Sex determination racket busted in Patiala, two held
Raid conducted by officials of the Barnala health department following a tip-off; arrested accused involves a woman
The local police on Thursday arrested two persons for allegedly running a sex determination racket in Patiala following a raid by a team of officials from the health department.
The accused have been identified as Meena Rani, a former employee of the Patiala health department, and her aide Jarnail Singh.
The team, led by the Barnala civil surgeon Dr Jasbir Aulakh, conducted the raid at the house of Rani in Chaura village in Patiala on the basis of a tip-off and seized a potable ultrasound machine besides a huge cache of medicines. They later informed the local police and health department officials and handed over the accused to them.
A woman patient, who is a resident of Rajpura town in Patiala district, was also caught during the raid. Officials said that the woman after taking abortion pills on Wednesday had come to get her fetus terminated.
“We have already sent the woman to government hospital for treatment,” a senior health official, who was part of the team, said.
Dr Aulakh said that a decoy patient got in touch with accused Jarnail and a deal was struck to get the sex of the child determined for ₹25,000. The money has also been recovered by the health officials.
The civil surgeon said that the accused asked the decoy patient to meet him at Patiala bus stand from where she was taken to Rani’s house in Chaura village for the test. Both the accused were caught red handed by the team.
Rani, who was booked and arrested five times in the past in similar cases, used to work as Auxiliary Nursing Midwifery (ANM) before she was dismissed from the health department in 2020. She was last arrested by the Patiala police in November 2020 and was currently out on bail. First case against her was registered in 2015.
On asked about why no regular vigil was kept on Rani despite she in the past booked for running the sex determination racket from the same place, Patiala civil surgeon Dr Raminder Kaur, said, “Our teams keep on checking such illegal activities, but it didn’t come to our notice. Now, it has been brought to our notice by the Barnala civil surgeon. We will lodge an FIR against them.”
Station House Officer of Urban Estate Police station, Amandeep Singh, who had reached the spot, said that they would be registering an FIR on the written complaint of the Patiala health officials.
