Have info on illegal sex test, get Rs. 51,000 from Haryana sarpanch

Sex determination tests would have been on their way out if every village of Haryana had a Sushma Bhadu. Sat Singh reports.

Sex determination tests would have been on their way out if every village of Haryana had a Sushma Bhadu.

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In a state notorious for female foeticide, the 32-year-old sarpanch of Dhani Miyan Khan - a village 9 km from Fatehabad town - has announced a cash prize of Rs. 51,000 for tip-offs about sex-determination tests and illegal abortions.

Bhadu said she would foot the bill. Coming from a family with extensive landed property, she does not consider it a big price to stamp out the practice in her village.

"The sex ratio of Dhani Miyan Khan is better than the other villages in Fatehabad," said civil surgeon Suraj Bhan Kamboj.

The village is progressive in other ways too. It has a zero school dropout rate and had received the Centre's Nirmal Gram Puruskar for sanitation.

Dhani Miyan Khan was thus tailormade to take the lead in announcing some pro-women measures at a mahapanchayat of 12 villages held earlier this month.

The village panchayat would bear the cost of education of girls from deprived families and no woman would wear a veil in this Bishnoi-dominated belt, said Bhadu, who studied up to Class 7. "The decisions were agreed upon by the women," she said.

But the men of the village are no ciphers, insists said Bhadu's husband Bhagwan Dass. "They backed the decision to lift the purdah," he said.

Dass is also excited about his wife's anti-foeticide reward.