PATIALA: In a bid to counter illegal sex-determination and female foeticide, a team of doctors from the Haryana health department on Wednesday conducted a raid at a private hospital in Bahadurgarh town of Patiala district. The team had received reports of illegal sex-determination being carried out at the centre.Informing their counterparts in Patiala, the team led by Dr Neelam Kakkar, deputy civil surgeon of Kaithal district, conducted the raid at Vadi hospital on Patiala-Ghanaur Road near Bahadurgarh. Health officers from Patiala also assisted the Haryana team in the raid.The health team also raided the house of a woman doctor, who runs the hospital, at an urban estate in Patiala, and allegedly recovered equipment used in sex-determination, foetus Doppler and abortion pills. The teams also found a foetus from the hospital premises.Patiala-based civil surgeon Dr Harish Malhotra said, “The health team had received a complaint from their counterparts in Ambala about illegal practices being carried out at the hospital, following which a joint operation was launched. A pregnant decoy patient was sent to the hospital and she met the doctors there. An amount of Rs 15,000 was handed over to her to pay it to the doctors who had already given consent for conducting the illegal sex determination.”The decoy patient told the accused hospital authorities that she already had three daughters and was unwilling take the risk of giving birth to another, and for this, she wanted to learn the gender of her unborn baby so that she could abort it in case of a female foetus.Malhotra added that the health team nabbed the accused doctors red-handed and recovered Rs 15,000 from them. “The hospital is not authorized and registered to carry out procedures related to the medical termination of pregnancy. We have informed the local police and a detailed report will be handed over to them to initiate criminal action against the defaulters. The department has registered a formal complaint with the police as the accused were found violating the rules of Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act, 1994,” said Malhotra.

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