A shocking enterprise. Might there be more?

The arrest of a doctor, Chandan Ballal, who allegedly conducted more than 900 illegal abortions over the past three years, could well point to a thriving larger female foeticide racket in Karnataka. Activists have for long complained that the stringent laws to prevent sex determination tests and foeticide have not deterred unscrupulous doctors but have only pushed such activities underground. Most cases of foeticide, it is feared, go unreported.  In fact, the present case only came to light by chance when Bengaluru Police intercepted a car during a routine check and some probing revealed that a pregnant woman was being taken in it to undergo abortion. The illegal sex determination and foeticide enterprise was being carried on by Ballal allegedly with the connivance of another doctor based in Chennai, Tulasiraman, and others. Some alleged accomplices of Ballal have also been arrested. Ballal’s racket apparently operated in the Mandya, Mysuru and Bengaluru districts. The accused had cleverly hidden the sex determination facility inside a jaggery-making unit located in a sugarcane field in Mandya, from where the police have seized the ultrasound scanning machine used by them. The abortions were conducted at a hospital in Mysuru owned by Ballal, who allegedly charged Rs 30,000 for each such operation. 

While abortion per se is not illegal, being regulated under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971, female foeticide is a crime and conducting sex determination tests is illegal under the Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques Act (1994) and the Pre-Conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act (2004). Yet, while the practice of killing a girl child even before she is born continues, the conviction rate in these cases is abysmally low.

That Ballal and his co-accused were able to conduct the sex determination tests and illegal abortions for nearly three years, at the rate of almost one every day, only indicates that the local authorities in the district administration and police could have either turned a blind eye to the goings-on or were utterly negligent. The government should strengthen its information-gathering mechanism to identify such rackets which may be prevalent in other parts of the state, too. The police should conduct a thorough probe and take the case to its logical conclusion and the law should come down heavily on those convicted so as to deter others who might be tempted to follow their path to quick money.