Doctors held for pre-natal test

A doctor couple was arrested for conducting pre-natal sex determination examination which has been banned. The accused gynaecologist Dr Sigireddy Umameshwari, 60 and general surgeon Dr A. Chandra Shekar, both from Sri Krishna Multi-Speciality Hospital, Uppal, were trapped in a decoy operation carried out by the sleuths of Uppal Police, She team Rachakonda, and assisted by the district medical and health officers.

On Tuesday, following a tip off, a decoy was planned. A sub-inspector of Uppal police A. Krishnaiah, reached the hospital along with a women police constable who was eight months pregnant.

They found a doctor, Dr Manda Pallavi, duty medical officer, primary health care centre at the hospital, and sent the police constable for sex determination examination. On Dr Pallavi’s request, the accused, Dr Umameshwari, and her husband Dr A. Chandra Shekar conducted scanning for prenatal sex determination test to the constable by charging `7,500 and issued a report by disclosing that it was a baby boy.

Following the report, both the doctors were arrested and the amount of `7,500 was seized including a Sony printer, one LOGIQ 100 Pro Scanner and two cell phones from the hospital. The doctors were running the hospital from 2000 and for over a year they have been disclosing the gender through prenatal determination tests. The two were booked under Cr.No. 819/2018 U/s 420,406 IPC and Sec. 23 of PCPNDT Act 1994 of Uppal PS.