Sangli foeticide racket: Accused doctor’s wife arrested

Sangli: Wife of the homoeopathic doctor, who allegedly conducted foeticides at his clinic in Sangli district of western Maharashtra, was today arrested, a police officer said.

With this, the total number arrests in the case has gone up to seven, the official said.

Dr Babasaheb Khidrapure, who had allegedly conducted foeticides at his clinic in Sangli district had already been arrested from neighbouring Karnataka.

“Today, we arrested the Dr Khidrapure’s wife. With her arrest, the total number of people arrested in this case has gone up to seven. Some more people are likely to be arrested,” Dattatray Shinde, Superintendent of Police, Sangli, said.

Dr Khidrapure, who runs Bharti Hospital at Mhaisal village in Sangli was arrested a day after 19 aborted foetuses were found alongside a road, within a walking distance from the hospital on Sunday.

While some of them were buried, others were thrown carelessly in blue plastic bags along with animal and sewage waste, police had said.

Forty bags of skeletons, umbilical cords and other remains were also found and sent for tests, they said.

Bharti Hospital, where the abortions were were taking place, is located around 7 kms from the Karnataka border, and had two hidden basement rooms to terminate pregnancies in advanced stages.

At one end of the room is a fridge stocked with medicines used to induce abortion. On the other, there is an opening that led out of the building to a drain where blue plastic bags, half-destroyed medicine bottles and charred bio-medical waste was found, police had said.