"...when baby girls are treated with contempt, "Baby Judge" is an eye opener for all the girl-haters".
Entry for September 24, 2006
Spy-cam traps doc for female foeticide
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Rajkot (India): A Rajkot-based gynaecologist, Bharat Bhate (55), was caught red-handed doing a sex-determination test on a foetus on Friday. This is for the first time in the state that a pregnant woman has been used as a decoy to catch the erring doctor. The doctor was arrested from his clinic in Milpara-3. This kind of action was long needed in Gujarat that has an alarmingly skewed sex ratio of 878 girls per 1,000 boys. The low number of girls is attributed to rampant practice of sex-determination and resultant termination of pregnancy if the foetus is found to be female. Health department officials said that Bhate was notorious for doing sex-determination and illegal abortions. Officials raided his clinic thrice earlier, Dr Bhate had managed to dodge punitive action . “But as complaints against him persisted, we decided to use a pregnant woman as a decoy to catch him red-handed and set an example for other doctors who are indulging in this practice,” district collector Pradeep Sharma said. The sting operation was carried out by a special team from Delhi aided by state health officials. As per the plan, the pregnant lady accompanied by a man posing as her husband went to Dr Bhate on Friday morning requesting for a sex-determination test. “Dr Bhate fixed the deal at Rs 2,000 for the sonography if it was a male child. If the foetus was female, he offered to terminate pregnancy for a package rate of Rs 5, 000. He determined the foetus to be that of a male child and took Rs 2,000. These currency notes were numbered and were noted prior to the sting operation,” JS Ranawat, medical director of the state health department explained. A spy-camera was used to film the entire process. “The entire operation has been recorded on video tape, CDs of which would be circulated among the general public to create greater awareness against sex-determination,” Sharma said. Among districts in Gujarat, Rajkot has the fifth lowest sex ratio of 854 girls per 1,000 boys.
