Girija Vyas shocked, angry at abortions wells

Patiala, Aug 11 (UNI) The National Commission for Women chairperson Girija Vyas today expressed ''shock, anguish and indignation'' over the recovery of placenta and bones of aborted foetuses from two wells near a nursing home run by an unqualified couple in Patran town of the district.

''I am shocked. This is totally senseless and beyond imagination that the crime of such a large magnitude would take place in a civilised society,'' Ms Vyas, who today visited the incident site at Patran, said during an interaction with newspersons.

When asked on whether administration should also be held responsible, her response was an emphatic ''yes''.

''The administration failed to check what was going on obviously for quite some time. We have monitoring committees at the Centre and state level for checking foeticide but after seeing what has happened here, I will recommend that all states form district-level committees to monitor activities of diagnostic centres and nursing homes, midwifes and unscrupulous medical practitioners on a day to day basis,'' she said.

However, the society, specially the neighbourhood should also be vigilant against the crimes against society, she added.

While referring to inputs regarding the people from Haryana and Punjab, who resorted to aborting their presumably female foetuses, she said that joint working groups should be formed by the states to coordinate and check such crimes.

Ms Vyas wanted the government to make the Pre Natal Diagnostic Technique Act more stringent. ''The centres found guilty of indulging in sex detecting practices under the garb of medical diagnostics should not just be sealed, but have their license cancelled also,'' she said.

''The new medical techniques are being developed fast and the enforcement agencies many times are not kept abreast of these.

It is the duty of the government to train and make the enforcement officials aware about these periodically,'' the NCW chief said.

She also stressed the need of a multi-pronged approach to deal with chronic inhuman practice. ''There was a need to change the mindset of the society regarding gender equality. Unless the decrimination against girl child is nipped in the bud, gender education is provided at family level and women empowerment is ensured, this problem can not be stemmed, '' she said.

Patiala MP Preneet Kaur, who was also present at the press conference claimed that the sex ratio (0-6) has shown an improvement in the district from 837 per thousand as compared to 773 last year.

The NWC team visited the Patran town where the digging has almost completed and more bones and pieces of decayed clothes were found today. These have also been dispatched to the Rajindra Medical College.

UNI XC JN VD RAI1956