27-05-2025
Nurse arrested for running illegal abortion clinic in Bavla
The Special Operations Group (SOG) of Ahmedabad Rural Police on Tuesday raided a hotel in Bavla town and busted an illegal abortion clinic operating on its premises. The team also found a woman who had just undergone the illicit medical procedure and recovered an aborted foetus.
Besides Hemlata, the woman who underwent the abortion, another woman who helped Hemlata during the procedure, as well as the owner of the guest house, were booked under BNS Sections 91 (act to prevent a child from being born), 92 (causing death of an unborn child amounting to culpable homicide), 54 (abetment), as well as sections 5(2), and 5(3) of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act.
A team of the SOG had been patrolling in Bavla town. ASI Bharatsinh Khumansinh, meanwhile, received a tip-off that Hemlata, the wife of one Kalpesh Chinu Darji and a resident of Dholka, who did not possess a medical licence, was running an illegal abortion clinic at Panama Guest House in Bavla.
The police informed Taluka Health Officer Dr Rakesh Mehta and Medical Officer Dr Ankita Rabari of the Urban Health Center in Bavla, after which, the raid was carried out.
Police officers said that Hemlata had studied nursing. She had previously worked at a private hospital in Dholka and was currently working in another. Having learnt the procedure to perform medical abortions, she started her own business by discreetly performing abortions in lieu of payment for keeping the matter secret.
Deputy SP Neelam Goswami said that when the joint team raided Room No. 105 of the Panama Guest House, they found that an abortion had already been completed. The police seized a female foetus. She also said that the nurse would only conduct medical termination and not surgical termination of pregnancies.
DySP Goswami added that Hemlata used to solicit her clients at the hospital she worked at, especially luring those who already had one or two daughters and had illegally found out the sex of their foetus. She said that the police are also trying to find out hospitals or maternity homes where this illegal testing are done.
