Indian police said on Monday they had found 19 aborted female foetuses dumped in a sewer in the western state of Maharashtra, highlighting the country’s problem of female foeticide.
Prenatal sex tests are illegal in India, a policy designed to stop unborn girls being aborted by parents desperate for a boy.
We have recovered 19 foetuses and are trying to arrest the doctor, who is absconding
But the tests are still thought to be common, particularly in poor rural areas, and sex ratios are skewed towards males across India.
“We have recovered 19 foetuses and are trying to arrest the doctor, who is absconding,” Dattatray Shinde, a police superintendent in Maharasthra’s Sangli district, said.
He said the foetuses were found late Sunday wrapped in blue plastic bags in a sewer next to a clinic run by doctor Babasaheb Khidrapure in the village of Mhaisal.
Officers made the discovery after a 26-year-old woman died during a failed abortion attempt at the surgery, Shinde said. “We have arrested the victim’s husband Praveen Jamdade for pressuring her into an abortion,” he said.