Quack held for selling ''guaranteed male baby'' medicine

Gurugram: A 60-year-old quack was arrested by the district administration`s Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PNDT) team on charges of selling medicine to "guarantee" the birth of a male child, police said on Tuesday.

Gurugram Deputy Commissioner Hardeep Singh said a team, headed by the Chief Medical Officer (CMO), raided a clinic in Kherki Daula village on the Delhi-Gurugram expressway.

The team, including Deputy CMO Saryu Sharma, Drug Control officer Amandeep Singh and Red Cross Secretary Shyam Sunder, sent a dummy customer to the clinic of Baldevraj Bhardwaj, who gave "guarantee" that a woman would give birth only to a male child after having his medicine.

The dummy customer purchased the medicine for Rs 2,000. 

Sunder told IANS that Bhardwaj claimed he was a Registered Medical Practitioner practitioner but failed to show his certificate.

Sharma said that a few ultrasound centres might be involved in Bhardwaj`s gang. 

An FIR was registered against the accused under Section 23 of the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PNDT) Act and Sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC at Kherki Daula police station.

The Deputy Commissioner said the PNDT team has conducted 22 successful such raids in the last two years and that 60 doctors and their agents besides others were arrested.