Joint team of K’taka, Maha health officials busts illegal scanning centre in Kalaburagi

By Praveen Reddy

KALABURAGI: An illegal sex determination centre here was busted in a joint operation by the Kalaburagi and Maharashtra health officials. Portable ultrasound scanning equipment was also seized.

Officials inspecting the house of Dr Kulkarni.

Dr Gururaj Kulkarni, an AYUSH practitioner, was running his illegal scanning centre from a rented house at Santrasawadi area here. Through his agents, he would get pregnant women from Maharashtra to visit his clinic where he conducted sex determination tests for a fee.

Based on definite information, a team of health officials from Maharashtra arrived in Kalaburagi and, along with the Kalaburagi Health Department, raided the illegal scanning centre and seized some equipment.

The officials taking away the seized equipment.

“On September 13, we received a call from Osmanabad regarding illegal sex determination tests going on here. The officials there arranged for a decoy through an agent and the test was to be conducted the next day. We followed the agent and found that the illegal centre was being run at a house behind Vishwaganga Ayushyalaya which Dr Gururaj Kulkarni had taken on rent”, Kalaburagi District Health Officer (DHO) Dr Rajashekar Mali said.

Kalaburagi District Health Officer Dr Rajashekar Mali.

“When the patient arrived, the doctor went out and switched off his mobile phone. We found a portable ultrasound scanning machine at his house. The house owner was unaware of what he was doing there”, he added.

The health officials have since filed a filed a report before the court which will direct the jurisdictional police take up investigation.

The house where the illegal scanning centre was being run.

The Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act, 1994, was enacted by Parliament to stop female foeticide and arrest the declining sex ratio. Under the Act, prenatal sex determination is banned. However, illegal scanning centres keep cropping up in small cities and towns due to the preference for male children among some sections.