15 medical practitioners under cop scanner in illegal sex determination, foeticide racket in Pune region

Pune: Police have identified 15 medical practitioners from Pune, Solapur, Satara and Ahilyanagar for their alleged role in an illegal prenatal sex determination and abortion racket.

Superintendent of police (Pune rural) Sandeep Singh Gill on Thursday said all the medical practitioners, holding BAMS or BHMS degrees, were in contact with Annasaheb Giri, the prime accused arrested in the alleged female foeticide case.

“Giri had procured the sonography machine in 2024. Since then, they have allegedly carried out several illegal abortions in hospitals across Pune, Satara and Ahilyanagar districts. We will take further legal action against them,” he said.

A Std XII pass-out, Giri was accused of conducting illegal sonography tests, along with medical practitioner Atul Ankush Jadhav. A resident of Lohegaon-Wagholi Road, Jadhav would allegedly refer pregnant women to Giri for sex determination in violation of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act. He was the second man to be arrested in the case.

“We had initially identified two medical practitioners from Bhor who were in contact with Giri. Further investigation revealed involvement of 13 more medical practitioners,” Gill said.

“We managed to identify Giri and the other medical practitioners involved in the racket despite their attempts to destroy evidence of electronic and physical communications,” he said.

The medical practitioners involved in the racket are from Pune city and its neighbouring rural parts, Pimpri Chinchwad, Satara, Ahilyanagar and Solapur districts. “We will soon question a medical practitioner from Phaltan in Satara district as part of the probe. He had trained Giri to conduct sonography and determine the sex of a foetus,” Gill said.

The police have formed a special team to investigate the case. “The investigation has been transferred to the Economic Offences Wing of the Pune Rural Police for a fair probe,” he said.