TIRUVANNAMALAI: The Tiruvannamalai police have arrested two brokers linked to an illegal prenatal sex determination racket operating out of Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, in connection with the recent deaths of a pregnant woman and her toddler in Kilpennathur.
R Prathip (25) of Chittoor taluk and D Nagaraj (49) were arrested on Monday for arranging illegal fetal sex determination scans at a private centre in Tirupati, the police said. The centre has since been sealed.
This comes in the wake of the tragic deaths of Umadevi (25), who was five months pregnant, and her one-and-a-half-year-old daughter Meghanasree last week. Umadevi allegedly killed her daughter and ended her life.
Her husband Vignesh and in-laws, who had allegedly harassed her for carrying a ‘female foetus’, were subsequently arrested based on a complaint by Umadevi’s father that she was assaulted for refusing abortion.
According to police, Umadevi and her husband had travelled to Tirupati to undergo a scan to determine the sex of the foetus. The scan allegedly revealed the foetus to be female. Following this, her husband’s family allegedly tried to force her to go for abortion. Investigations revealed the scan falsely indicated a female foetus.
A postmortem later confirmed the foetus was male, underscoring the grave risks of illegal scan centres. “This is part of a larger network. Special teams are working to identify other centres and facilitators,” said a senior officer.
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