Anantapur: Sex determination clinic masquerading as saris centre busted

Anantapur: Medical and health department officials, along with police, raided a house that sold saris but also had facilities to scan pregnant women and determine the sex of their babies.

CPM and IDWA activists suspected something fishy when a house in Ramachandranagar that functioned as a saree centre was being visited by mostly pregnant women. CPM leader Rami Reddy alerted the District Medical and Health Officer (DMHO) K. Devi as also the III Town police.

Following this, health authorities, police and revenue staff raided the house. It revealed that a person named Sunil, who had earlier worked at a diagnosis centre, had purchased a scanning machine and installed it in a room. He also employed Shravani, a pharma graduate from Kurnool, paying her a salary of ₹30,000 salary per month.

The two had a tie-up with private nursing homes that conducted abortions if the baby in the womb turned out to be a female. As per records available at Sunil’s residence, 128 pregnant women had undergone scanning to determine the sex of babies they carried.

"The centre collected amounts from ₹7,000 to ₹70,000 for conducting the sex-determination test. The person running the centre has not informed us about the private nursing homes with which he has a tie-up. We have entrusted the matter to the III Town police for a detailed investigation,” DMHO Devi said.

Police have detained Sunil and Shravani

Residents of the colony have expressed shock over the running a sex-determination centre in their midst.