Ghaziabad: Two arrested for conducting prenatal sex determination test

A decoy woman customer along with a man were sent to the centre for taking up the test and suspect Mamta Devi charged her ₹22,000 for conducting the illegal test

A joint operation by police and health department officials on Sunday in Ghaziabad led to arrest of two persons who allegedly cheated people in the guise of conducting prenatal sex determination tests at an unregistered facility being run as a hospital in Lal Kuan, senior officers said on Monday.

Mamta Devi’s alleged role was to lure couples or pregnant women to the centre for conducting such tests and would charge anything from ₹25,000-40,000 from each customer. (Sakib Ali/HT Photo)

Police said upon receiving information that the facility was conducting such illegal tests, a decoy woman customer was sent there to trap its operators. Accordingly, two suspects -- Hapur resident Mohammad Nazim, 35, and his accomplice Vijay Nagar resident,Mamta Devi, 35 -- were arrested.

The officials said two of their accomplices, identified as Asha Devi and Sandeep Kumar, are on the run and will be arrested soon.

“The health department and police acted upon information that prenatal sex determination tests were conducted at the hospital. which is not registered facility. They simply put up a board outside a residential flat to make it look like a hospital. None of the suspects is a medical practitioner, but they somehow had half-baked knowledge of conducting such tests,” said Lipi Nagayach, assistant commissioner of police, Wave City.

The officials said a decoy customer woman along with a man posing as her husband were sent to the centre for taking up the test and suspect Mamta Devi charged her ₹22,000 for conducting the illegal test.

“The suspects conducted the test with the help of scanning equipment and also disclosed the results to the couple. Soon, teams reached the spot and arrested the two suspects. An FIR was registered and teams are trying to trace the two absconding suspects. During interrogation, Nazim told police that he studied up to Class 10 and learned about operating the scanning equipment at an health-care facility,” Nagayach said.

Police said Mamta Devi’s role was to lure couples or pregnant women to the centre for conducting such tests and would charge anything from ₹25,000-40,000 from each customer. She would also help women terminate pregnancies if the tests indicated that the unborn foetus was a girl, police said.

Police have registered an FIR at Wave City police station on Monday under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections 61(2) (criminal conspiracy), 318(4) (cheating) and also levied different sections of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971, the National Medical Commission Act and also the Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act.

Police said they recovered an ultrasound machine, a box containing MTP equipment, medicines, a car, forged documents and ₹22,000 paid by the decoy customer.