Harbhajan Posted January 18, 2006 Report Share Posted January 18, 2006 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1377138.cms Punjab village cries for unborn girls I P Singh [ Thursday, January 19, 2006 01:25:43 amTIMES NEWS NETWORK ] NAWANSHAHR (PUNJAB): Tired of losing out daughters even when they are in the womb and seeing entire villages full of just men, residents of Naura — a small village near Banga in Punjab — have decided they must do something before it is too late. Two days ago when news came that an unborn girl had been murdered in her mother Manjit Kaur's womb, hundreds of villagers wearing white assembled outside Manjit Kaur's house and took out a "funeral procession". Fighting female foeticide under the umbrella of Upkaar Coordination Committee, the villagers even held a shok sabha (condolence meeting). "The government is doing what it can but this is finally our problem. A society just can't sit aloof as children die in wombs," said Jaspal Singh Gidda, general secretary of the committee. Darshan Singh, a farmer who joined the protest, said, "A girl died even before her birth. When will the society mourn its missing girls? This is a good time to start." He had reasons to be appalled. Years ago someone in his family had done just that and he hadn't been able to come out of the shock. For the uninitiated, for long Punjab has seen the killing of its unborn girls with alarming persistence and cruelty. At present it has a sex ratio of 874 girls to 1,000 boys against the national average of 933. It continues to lose one-fourth of all girls who would be born. In certain areas, the problem is so acute that a Bill Gates Foundation-sponsored study reported a ratio of just 628 in Khamano block of Fatehgarh Sahib. Nawanshahr deputy commissioner Krishan Kumar said a two-member committee, consisting of a civil surgeon, child development officer, and a panchayat officer had probed the matter. "It confirmed the incident to be a case of female foeticide," Kumar said, adding that he had written to the Hoshiarpur SSP asking him to register a case. The family at the centre of episode denied the allegation. Manjit's mother-in-law Bhajan Kaur said her 'bahu' underwent abortion after she bled profusely. But sadness was writ large in the eyes of Manjit, who is already a mother of a three-year-old daughter 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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