Bengaluru: The health department officials in Mysuru have busted a racket involved in sex determination of foetus and termination of female foetus, that was being run in a farm house in the outskirts of the city.
The clandestine operation was taking place in a farmhouse near Honaganahalli Hindi, in the outskirts of Mysuru. A name plate outside the farm read" `His Holiness Om Swamy Shivananda Paramahamsa Nilaya' to make it look like a spiritual centre.
For foetus sex determination, the operators used to charge ₹ Rs 25,000 and to terminate a female foetus, an additional ₹ 30,000 was being charged. The Health officials sent a woman called Puttasiddamma through the middleman Swamy. After collecting ₹ 30,000 from the woman, Swamy had sent the woman in a car to the farmhouse.
When the officials raided the farmhouse, there were two more women, who had come for foetus six determination. The officials have arrested Shyamala, a nurse in a private nursing home at Bannur near Mysuru, her brother Govinda Raju, two men from Harish Naika and Shivakumar from K R Nagar, who had brought their wives for foetus sex determination. However, Shyamala's husband Karthik, Puttaraju, a middleman and others have escaped and are absconding.
The health officials have also confiscated the scanner and other medical equipment used for sex determination and also seized ₹ 3 lakh and a diary kept in a locker of the farm house.
In villages around Mandya and Mysuru, the villagers are still gender biased and are eager to terminate female foetus, if determined. According to Mysuru district health officer Dr P C Kumaraswamy, the department had information about such rackets being operational in Mandya and Mysuru district. Three months ago, the department had unearthed one racket being run from a sugarcane farm in Mandya district. Since they continued to receive similar incidents, they had kept an eye around Mysuru.
Shyamala was working as a nurse at S K Hospital in Bannur.She was running this racket for many years and whenever she was on leave, she used to get the scanner and other equipment from the hospital she was working and conduct sex determination test as well as termination of foetus.
Her husband Karthik, brother Govind Raju were actually running the racket through middlemen like Siddalinga Swamy and others, Dr Kumaraswamy added.
