Doctors suspended over abortions

By Narayan Bareth
BBC News, Jaipur

Female babies are not wanted in parts of India

Seven government-employed doctors have been suspended in India on suspicion of offering selective abortions.

The Rajasthan state government said it had also recommended the suspension of three junior doctors. The doctors deny the allegations.

The move comes after an undercover television report into abortions of female foetuses in the state.

Under Indian law, ultrasound scans on pregnant women to determine whether a foetus is male or female are illegal.

Lost girls

In March, a court in the state of Haryana sentenced a doctor and his assistant to two years in jail for revealing the sex of a foetus and then agreeing to abort it.

Last month, the authorities in Rajasthan launched an investigation into 21 doctors accused of aborting female foetuses. The doctors said they had been framed.

It is estimated that 10 million female foetuses have been aborted in India over the last two decades.

Latest census figures show 922 female births for every 1,000 in Rajasthan, but in some of the worst-affected districts that number drops as low as 820.