Girls’ foetuses found near Bihar clinic
At least 16 dead foetuses and underdeveloped infants — 14 of them female — were found dumped in the open in Bihar’s Kishanganj on Sunday, indicating rampant female foeticide and female infanticide taking place in a state where the latest census noted an alarming fall in the sex ratio.
Policemen reached an isolated site behind the National High School in Kishanganj town after local residents, suspecting foul play, complained of a recent dumping of biomedical waste by some nursing homes. A cursory examination of the waste revealed bodies of underdeveloped infants stuffed in plastic jars and thrown away.
With Bihar having witnessed a drop in the sex ratio from 919 in 2001 to 916 in 2011, the latest discovery of such a large number of dead foetuses has renewed concern among administrators, doctors and the police. The incident becomes particularly disturbing because the Nitish Kumar-led government has taken a slew of steps since 2005 to ensure the education and well-being of young girls and to empower the state’s women.
The location of a private nursing home close to the site where the dead foetuses were found has raised suspicion about the foeticide having been executed there. The police, currently investigating the source of the dumped waste, remains tight-lipped about possible links between the discoveries and the nearby nursing home. The police will also probe if the foetuses were being carried by unwed mothers or by women who were married but did not want to give birth to girls.
Sources said Kishanganj, a small town in northeastern Bihar with a Muslim majority population, has dozens of nursing homes offering sex-determination tests based on ultrasound scans, despite the strict ban on this practice, as well as sex-selective abortions, often conducted by ill-trained and illegal practitioners.
But the discovery of 14 dead female foetuses points to a systematic killing of the girl child in a district headquarters town that has managed to escape close scrutiny by regulatory officials, police officials said.
“This incident could be due to the illegal sex-determination tests around here,” said Suman Devi, a woman who was in a large crowd that had gathered around the policemen examining the waste containing the dead foetuses.
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