Chambal's female infanticide makes Nithari a pale shadow

Katrol, MP, Jan 24 (UNI) It is a scene more heart-rending than the Nithari visuals when a mother is compelled to murder her female infant by placing a charpoy's leg on the child's neck.

This is the brutal method adopted for several decades in hundreds of villages in Madhya Pradesh's Bhind, Morena and a few neighbouring districts where the desire for male offspring is simply overwhelming.

Nithari has only two known accused, but the hundreds of offenders in these districts are parents themselves even as the sonography machine has assumed a satanic role and female foeticide is a thriving business.

During a just-concluded tour organised by the Press Information Bureau, a team of journalists learnt that such crime -- that beats even medieval-era cruelty -- has assumed the dimensions of a social evil and as a direct consequence the gender balance in Morena and Bhind has taken a body blow.

In some villages of Morena, there are as few as 400 to 700 females for every 1,000 males. No 'barat' (bridegroom's procession) has entered a few villages for 20 years.

The political system and administrative machinery have their own perception of this burning problem. Careful about their votebanks, political leaders fight shy of saying or doing anything against the menace while the officialdom hesitates to take any open initiative as it considers the mass slaughter a ''social'' issue.

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