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Tamil Nadu: 3 booked under NSA in fertility centres case
The case pertains to the girl’s oocyte being sold illegally to private fertility clinics by her mother and stepfather, a broker and a person, who forged the girl’s identity documents, including Aadhaar, to show that she was an adult and married.
Tamil Nadu police have slapped the stringent National Security Act (NSA) on three of the four people accused of illegally selling oocytes, also called the “egg”, of a 16-year-old girl to private fertility clinics, state health minister M Subramanian said on Thursday.
“They (the three accused) have violated so many provisions of the law by selling her (the girl’s) eggs repeatedly, and the child has been sexually assaulted. This is one of the worst things that can happen to a child. So, we have taken very strict action (under the NSA),” Subramanian told HT.
The case pertains to the girl’s oocyte being sold illegally to private fertility clinics by her mother and stepfather, a broker and a person, who forged the girl’s identity documents, including Aadhaar, to show that she was an adult and married.
After the case came to light in June, police arrested the four involved in the case from Erode.
The mother, stepfather and broker have been booked under the NSA. The girl’s mother and stepfather have been charged with taking her to private fertility centres to sell her oocytes as many as eight times since 2017.
They had received ₹20,000 during each of their visits. A woman intermediary received ₹5,000 as commission for linking the family and hospitals.
Another man, who forged an Aadhaar card for changing the girl’s name and date of birth, was also arrested.
The child had also complained that her stepfather has been sexually assaulting her for more than five years.
She is now in a government-run home for children. The girl had threatened to die by suicide in July wishing to go to her relatives, but since the case is under investigation, police had declined her request.
The Tamil Nadu government had sealed four private hospitals across the state for harvesting her eggs, and one of the hospitals got this action quashed by the Madras high court. The state has appealed against the order that is coming up for hearing on August 9.
In July, health authorities shut two branches of Sudha Hospital in Erode and Salem, Ramprasad Hospital in Perundurai, Vijay Srishti Fertility Centre in Hosur, Sree Krishna Hospital in Thiruvananthapuram and Mathrutva Fertility Center in Tirupati.
The state health department forwarded findings and complaints to their counterparts in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.
