Police to track down couples who approached operator of illegal sonography centre for sex determination

Pune: The Pune Rural police have intensified efforts to trace couples from Pune, Ahilyanagar, Solapur and Satara districts who allegedly visited an illegal sonography centre for prenatal sex determination and subsequently underwent abortions.

The case came to light on May 14, after a medical practitioner from Manjari came across a sex-determination video and alerted authorities. The video was verified on May 19, following which the Yavat police registered a case under various provisions of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act.

During investigation, the police identified 15 medical practitioners from four districts for suspected involvement. Over the past 20 days, they arrested illegal sonography centre operator Annasaheb Giri, a Std XII passout, and Atul Ankush Jadhav, a medical practitioner from the Lohegaon-Wagholi Road area. A third accused is in Pune police custody in connection with another case, the police said.

Superintendent of police (Pune Rural) Sandeep Singh Gill said identifying and contacting the couples who approached the accused was critical to the investigation. “It is important to reach out to the married couples who visited Giri for sex determination. Further inquiry will help us understand how the racket functioned across multiple districts,” he said.

Gill said the police would summon the couples to record their statements. “We want to establish how they came into contact with the illegal sonography centre operated by Giri and determine the role of the medical practitioners linked to the network,” he said.

According to the SP (Pune Rural), around 150 couples from Pune, Ahilyanagar, Solapur and Satara districts, as well as from Pune city and Pimpri Chinchwad, visited the centre. “Once the couples are identified, we will be better positioned to assess the financial scale of the racket and estimate the number of female foeticide cases linked to the network,” Gill said.

A special investigation team has been constituted and the probe has now been handed over to the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Pune Rural police for further investigation. The two arrested accused have been booked under provisions of PCPNDT Act.