Doctors who killed foetuses convicted

Mumbai: A doctor couple from Beed district accused of killing several female foetuses has been convicted and sentenced to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment by the Beed court on Friday. The police had booked Sudam and Saraswati Munde for the death of Vijaymala Mahadeo Pattekar (32), a sugarcane harvester from Bhopa in Dharur taluka, Beed, while allegedly aborting a female foetus. The Beed court has also sentenced the victim’s husband to 10-year imprisonment.

Public prosecutor Milind Waghirkar said that the district sessions judge A.S. Gandhi also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 each on the trio.

In this case, the criminal cases were registered under sections 304, 312, 314, 315 and 316 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act and Section 3A, Section 9, Section 17, Section 29 of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy  (MTB) Act. Munde was also booked under sections 4 and 6 under the MTB Act.

In May 2012, Vijaymala died during the abortion in the Mundes’ hospital. The police had arrested 17 persons in connection with the death but four of them died during the trial and 10 others were acquitted. The accused will have to spend three and a half years behind bars as they already spent the last six and a half years in prison.

Advocate Varsha Deshpande, whose NGO Lek Laadki Abhiyan was instrumental in exposing the couple, said the doctors’ wrongdoings had been going on for years.

Ms Deshpande said, “It’s a landmark judgment. We’ve received several complaints on how the hospital thrived on sex determination of foetuses and illegal abortions. We decided to investigate the matter and expose them.”

Following a sting operation, the authorities sealed sonography machines and cancelled the hospital’s licence under the under the PCPNDT and MTP Acts.