CHANDIGARH: In 2018, Punjab’s Department of Health and Family Welfare become the first state in the country to hire a detective agency to check female foeticide.
In the last two years, the agency has been lending critical support to the health department in nabbing doctors who take money to perform prenatal ultrasound tests to determine the sex of a foetus.
Sources in the health department said in the last two years more than 19 successful sting operations were carried out to nab those violating the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Technique Act.
Of these 19 operations, 15 were carried out by the detective agency while the department conducted the remaining four.
In all, 51 accused were arrested and 17 ultrasound machines seized.
Three successful sting operations — the highest — were carried out in Gurdaspur and Patiala districts. In Gurdaspur, three were arrested and 11 ultrasound centres sealed.
While in Patiala, home of Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, five accused were arrested and three machines seized.
Principal Secretary, Health and Family Welfare, Punjab, Anurag Aggarwal said, “The department and this detective agency have been working together and doing the sting operations. It was not just this detective agency alone. As their contract is over and there was no clause to give extension so the department is now in a process to issue new bids.’’
Sources said that the detective agency has not only conducted stings in Punjab but also in the neighbouring state of Haryana.
State government officials followed a few women from Punjab, who went to hospitals in Hisar and Gurugram in Haryana, for the sex determination test.
They arrested seven, including doctors.
When the agency was hired two years ago, the mandate was clear — provide evidence to the state health department so that the accused could be legally prosecuted.