Gurgaon: A health department raid on a clinic in Sohna uncovered the illegal sale of an abortion kit on Friday. The man selling the kit had no medical qualification, officials said.An FIR was registered at City Sohna police station at 9pm on Friday against Uttam Bala, son of Nikhil Chandra and resident of Dabua Colony in Faridabad. The police subsequently took custody of Bala along with the seized MTP kit, medicines and documents handed over by the health department team.Bala allegedly demanded Rs 1,000 from a woman seeking to terminate a two-month pregnancy and handed her a kit containing mifepristone and misoprostol tablets.The action was carried out at Bangali Clinic on Sohna-Palwal Road after the civil surgeon’s office received information that the Class X pass person was practising as a doctor and was conducting illegal pregnancy terminations. Officials also found that clinic was not registered under the MTP Act, according to the complaint.The case also assumes significance in Haryana, where authorities have been stepping up action against illegal abortion practices because of their potential link with sex-selective termination.Haryana, which had the worst sex ratio at birth (SRB) among all states at 834 girls per 1,000 boys during the 2011 Census period, improved its SRB to 923 by 2019 after years of aggressive enforcement under the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao campaign. The state has since seen a renewed decline, with the annual SRB falling to 910 in 2024, the lowest level since 2016.The health department’s PCPNDT (Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques) machinery has been conducting decoy operations and inspections to detect violations involving pregnancy termination and sex determination.A complaint submitted to the SHO of City Sohna police station — by PCPNDT nodal officer Dr Devender Singh Solanki — alleges violations of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, BNS, National Medical Commission Act and Drugs and Cosmetics Act.A joint team from the civil surgeon’s office laid a trap using a decoy operation. “The woman volunteer was sent to the clinic after being briefed by the team. She told Bala that she was around two months pregnant and did not want to continue the pregnancy,” an official said.According to the complaint, Bala asked her questions about the pregnancy and then demanded Rs 1,000 for terminating it. The decoy handed him two Rs 500 notes whose serial numbers had been recorded by the team before the operation.Bala handed her an Unwanted Kit, containing one mifepristone tablet and four misoprostol tablets, and explained how she should take the tablets to terminate the pregnancy.The woman came out of the clinic and signalled the team, following which officials entered the premises and caught Bala on the spot.The money was recovered from Bala. Officials matched the serial numbers of the two notes with those recorded before the operation and found them to be the same.A health official said, “The seized material and documents had been handed over to police. The health department has sought an FIR against Bala under sections 3, 4 and 5 of the MTP Act, sections 125 and 318(4) of BNS, Section 34(2) of National Medical Commission Act and sections 18A, 18(c) and 27(b)(ii) of Drugs and Cosmetics Act.”During questioning, Bala was asked to produce his medical qualification and explain the basis on which he was using the prefix “Doctor” and practising medicine. According to the complaint, he told officials that he was only a 10th-class pass and had no qualification in medical science.The health department said its team found other medical equipment and medicines at the clinic.Bala failed to produce patient records or records relating to the purchase, sale or distribution of medicines. He also failed to disclose the source from which he had purchased the MTP kit and other medicines.The equipment and medicines were sealed in a box bearing the “DSS” seal and handed over to police along with the documents and Bala, according to the complaint.The recovered abortion kit was an Unwanted Kit, containing mifepristone 200 mg and four misoprostol tablets of 200 mcg each. The packaging carries a prescription-only warning and states that the product is to be used under the supervision of a service provider and in a medical facility specified under the MTP Act and MTP Rules.The case highlights the risks of abortion medication being supplied outside the regulated medical system. Mifepristone and misoprostol are used for medical termination of pregnancy, but their use for MTP has to comply with the legal and medical framework prescribed under the MTP Act.The issue in this case, officials said, is not the availability of abortion medication itself but the alleged involvement of an unqualified person and an unregistered clinic.Unsupervised use of the medicines can also leave women without appropriate assessment or follow-up care in case of complications such as excessive bleeding or an incomplete abortion.The department’s complaint also raises questions about the source of the medicines and the absence of patient and drug records at the clinic, which could help investigators establish whether the alleged practice was an isolated incident or part of a larger operation.
