VILLUPURAM: After a video of a political party functionary ' highlighting a forced family planning drive' by doctors inside Gingee government hospital went viral on social media, a criminal offence case was filed against him on Sunday. He has been absconding and a search is on to nab him.
On February 26th, Naam Thamizhar Katchi member, Shankar is said to have barged into the female ward of the hospital to create this 'awareness', but reaction to his efforts were far from laudatory.
"A ruckus was created by the man as he entered the female ward and tried to instigate the women by saying that doctors and the government are forcing them to undergo family planning surgery," said doctor K Pazhamalai (47) from Gingee GH.
"Shankar also made a video without the consent of the patients and without having an authorized permission to shoot in the hospital. He is seen telling the patients to agitate against the doctors," said sources.
In the video he is allegedly seen saying," As they (central government) can't kill us directly, they are implementing this scheme to indirectly kill our people. Already over one lakh Tamil people have been killed in genocide. This is a clear conspiracy to kill Tamil people in a different way. We must not comply to this, please wake up to reality and agitate against this."
When Express contacted Shankar, he said, "Women who have two children are forced to undergo the surgery . This is a conspiracy planned by anti-Tamil spirited forces in the government."
Dr Pazhamalai, told Express, "Kallakurichi is a socially underdeveloped district and leads the state in high-order pregnancy (HOP) - a woman giving birth to more than two children. The directorate of medical services in Chennai had directed us to control this rate, because the women here are unhealthy and HOP causes severe health issues in the mother including, anaemia, diabetes and high/low blood pressure. Due to that we are facing high maternal death rates as well, so naturally we had to educate the women and men on the consequences of having more than two children. Only with their consent we do family planning surgery. No patient is forced because we get them to sign the consent from before surgery."
"Meeting the female patients and provoking their emotions sound gruesome, let alone filming their video," he added.
Kallakurichi district collector had taken the crisis seriously and immediately sought action after the video went viral.