Leaders forsake female foeticide issue in Punjab elections

Patiala, Feb 6 (UNI) With just few days left for elections in Punjab, political parties are keeping a distance from the 'female foeticide' issue which once rocked the Patran town in August last year following the sensational discovery of two wells in the backyard of a private nursing home dumped allegedly with about 50 aborted female foetuses.

Both the major political parties, the SAD and the Congress, have not been touching this major social issue in Patran, that made national headlines, which falls under the Shutrana Assembly, a reserve constituency having a total of 1,55,075 voters, out of which 74,584 are women as against 80,491 men.

While in August last, almost all political parties had issued statements codemning the practice, the issue has been jettisoned by them in favour of purely political concerns during the poll campaign.

Even media and social organisations here have failed to sustain the movement against the abhorrent trend which had gained wide publicity after it was discovered that a doctor Pritam Singh and his wife, Amarjit Kaur, had allegedly been conducting number of such abortions.

The major issue here seems to have shrunk to painting the rival as ''corrupt and traitor'' as interestingly Shutrana Hamair Singh Ghagga, a former deputy minister in Beant Singh-led government, is contesting as a SAD nominee and Congress nominee Nirmal Singh, who represented the constituency as a SAD MLA, has switched over to the Congress.

In this district, which has seven Assembly segments, the total electorate are 11,42,441, out which 5,48,669 are women whereas 5,93,772 voters are men.

While the whole country is facing a gender imbalance due to rampant female foeticide, the situation is far more worse in the state, particularly in this district, despite being an economically well-off state, and showed a higher incidence of pre-birth killing of the girl child.

The national sex ratio for the age group of 0-6 was 927 girls per thousand boys in 2001 against 945 in the 1991 census. The 2001 census figures further revealed that the number of girl child was comparatively lower in the affluent regions such as Punjab (798), Haryana (819), Chandigarh (845), Delhi (868), Gujarat (883) and Himachal Pradesh (896).

In order to check female feticide, Prohibition of Sex Selection Act was brought in to effect 1996. By the end of February 2005, at least 25,770 ultrasound units had been registered in the country.

However, it has been reported that the practice of aborting female foetuses was still prevalent.

According to a UNICEF report, around 7,000 female foetues are killed in the womb every day with the help of prenatal sex-determination technology. The birth-rate of male children is higher than it was a decade ago, the study shows.

The fact that no party was so far ready to take up the problem as a poll issue even in one of the worst-hit region only exposes the lack of political will which has led to this grim situation.

UNI