The Faridkot kidnapping case victim had to spend about 12 hours in the civil hospital to get her pregnancy terminated as due to alleged dilly-dallying of a doctor and pressure from the side of accused, doctors feared of getting embroiled in some legal tangle.
"We had reached the hospital with the victim at about 10 am on Friday, but even after completing formalities doctors were reluctant to carry out abortion," alleged Swarn Singh, a member of the joint action committee.
"In the evening, doctors, at one time, left the girl on the hospital bed due to alleged pressure. We called the members of joint action committee to the hospital and brought the matter to the notice of civil and higher police officials," he added.
On the intervention of the local MLA and district authorities, the doctors came to the hospital and decided that the victim will be operated upon at about 10 pm, Swarn Singh said. "They reached the hospital after 11pm and terminated the pregnancy at about midnight."
"This way the family had to face a lot of harassment at the hospital due to the role of a doctor who was not even on the panel and some other people who allegedly pressured doctors not to carry out the abortion," he claimed.
{{/usCountry}}"This way the family had to face a lot of harassment at the hospital due to the role of a doctor who was not even on the panel and some other people who allegedly pressured doctors not to carry out the abortion," he claimed.
{{/usCountry}}Stating that he was in Chandigarh, Dr Rakesh Arora, civil surgeon, Faridkot, said: "The delay in terminating the pregnancy was caused due to several formalities in the case as the girl was a minor and unmarried. Moreover, the matter is already in the court. The ultrasound scan of the girl was also required to be done before the termination of pregnancy, but the doctor concerned was on leave. So the girl had to be sent to the medical college. All this took time," said Dr Arora, adding that: "But we proceeded as per the law."