Homeopath BA Khidrapure and his wife conducted female foeticide at unregistered hospital
When Swati Praveen Jamdade (26) died, a horrific practice that has been going on in Sangli for about 10 years came to light. She died on March 1 after a botched medical termination of pregnancy (MTP) on February 27, and her parents filed a case against her husband Praveen. Jamdade was forced to abort her third female foetus after giving birth to two girls.
On the investigation trail, officers were stunned. They discovered 19 foetuses alongside a road, within walking distance from a hospital. They found them in a ditch alongside the Miraj-Belgaum road in Mhaisal village, where Bharti hospital is. While some of them were dug up, others were thrown carelessly in blue plastic bags along with animal waste and sewage.
What followed were a series of horrific stories. Forty bags of skeletons, umbilical cords and other remains were found -- all sent for tests now – from the area. Bharti hospital, where the medical terminations were taking place, was being run by a homeopath.
The hospital, a nondescript building, less than 7 km from the Karnataka border, had two hidden basement rooms to terminate pregnancies in advanced stages. At one end of the room is a fridge stocked with medicines used to induce abortion. On the other, there is an opening that led out of the building to a drain. Here, there were blue plastic bags, half-destroyed medicine bottles and charred bio-medical waste.
Neither is the hospital registered under the Nursing Home Act, nor are homeopaths allowed to carry out MTP under Medical Council of India (MCI) guidelines. Babasaheb Appasaheb Khidrapure and his wife MB Khidrapure, who were running the hospital, which is little more than a dispensary, are on the run now.
Varsha Deshpande, National Inspection and Monitoring Committee member for the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Technique (PCPNDT) Act, Health and Family Welfare Ministry, Govt of India, who visited the spot on Monday, said: "How did the administration not know about it when everything was happening in the open? There could be more doctors involved and combing operations must be carried out in all border districts where sex ratio has fallen down drastically."
The state government has sent a team of five people from the health department -- three local officials and two from Pune – for investigations.
"Bharti hospital is not an MTP-registered centre as per records," said Dr Satish Pawar, Director, Health Services, Maharashtra. "There are three Acts which have been violated -- the Nursing Home Act, the MTP Act and the PCPNDT Act," he added.
"We have sent DNA samples of the 19 foetuses to the lab to ascertain the gender," said Sangli SP Dattatray Shinde said.
With the Maharashtra Assembly in session, the state government is likely to face the heat. Women and Child Development Minister Pankaja Munde called it a "heinous incident" while Health Minister Dr Deepak Sawant said that Maharashtra will work with the Karnataka government to halt female foeticide.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
 "Bharti hospital")
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}