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      An ultrasound clinic owner was caught red-handed by a health department team while he was taking money from a pregnant woman for sex detection of her unborn child, official sources said.

      Civil Surgeon Vibha Sharan, who led the five-member team including drug inspector Sumant Mishra and a designated magistrate, said that on a secret complaint from a lady the raid was conducted on a private X-ray/ultrasound clinic in downtown Sakchi area.

      “Its owner-cum-ultrasound machine operator Ajit Kumar Nayak was caught red-handed taking `5,000 from the lady for fetal sex detection and was later handed over to police,” she said.

      Meanwhile, East Singhbhum district civil surgeon office has decided to carry out a random checking at the ultrasound clinics across district shortly.

      Revealing about the move of random checking at ultrasound clinics, civil surgeon Vibha Sharan said that such checking is necessary as the owners of these X-ray clinics tend to do the pre-natal sex determination test for earning fast money.

      “As per our information there are 114 registered ultrasound clinics across the East Singhbhum district. Although the owners of these clinics fix boards, declaring that prenatal sex determination test is not done there, but we had concrete information that in several clinics, such unlawful tests are being carried out with impunity,” Sharan said.

      Following arrest of the technician from a Sakchi clinic, the health team had raided at three more clinics in Sakchi and Mango localities and sealed them up for verification whether the pre-natal test for sex determination was being carried out in those clinics or not.