Data on female foeticide shared by state governments with the Union home ministry has set off alarm bells within the MHA about the complete neglect of laws governing pre-natal sex determination and implementation of the ban on female foeticide. MHA officials said the crime of female foeticide is much bigger given the decline in the female child sex ratio, which puts a question mark on the figures being reported by state governments.
The police registered 38 cases of female foeticide in Madhya Pradesh, 21 in Chhattisgarh, 15 in Punjab, 13 in Rajasthan, 12 each in UP and Maharashtra, seven in Andhra Pradesh and one each in Bihar and Jharkhand. However, out of 38 cases in MP, chargesheets were filed in only four cases and seven persons were convicted. In Punjab, only two persons faced conviction after a chargesheet was filed in one out of 15 cases. Rajasthan, Maharashtra, AP, Bihar and Jharkhand have reported zero convictions while only one person was convicted in UP. However, no cases of female foeticide were registered in Orissa, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand and West Bengal among others.
“From the data it is amply evident that there is a serious case of under-reporting in these types of cases. While the increased rate of reporting is not our sole objective, the main concern is to eliminate the deep-rooted malaise in society and the bias against the girl child,” an MHA official said. The MHA has told state governments and police chiefs that the primary target should be to achieve a complete ban on pre-natal diagnostic techniques as governed by the Pre-Conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994.