Solapur doctor couple for female foeticide
In an echo of the female foeticide scandal in Sangli earlier this year, the Solapur police have now arrested a doctor couple in Akluj, 300 km from Mumbai, for allegedly conducting sex determination and gender-selective abortions.
The accused, Dr Tejas Gandhi (43) and his wife Dr Priti Gandhi (41), who ran the Siya Maternity and Surgical Home, are suspected to have conducted at least 36 gender-based abortions since May 2016. The facility did not have valid registrations to conduct Medical Termination of Pregnancies (MTP), either.
Ironically, Priti is involved in a ‘Save the Girl Child’ campaign in the area. The arrests happened on Thursday night after an anonymous tip-off led to a cross-district operation.
“We received an anonymous call about the wife of a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) jawan from Satara undergoing sex selection and female foeticide in 2016 as well as this year,” said social activist Varsha Deshpande of the Lek Ladki Abhiyaan.
She claimed the Gandhis charged the jawan Rs 13,000 for the abortion and alleged that the couple conducted both sex determination tests and MTP.
A decoy operation led the activists and police to one Sikandar Shaikh, who conducted gender determination using a mobile veterinary sonography machine at Kashil on the …read more
