Mandya: The Special Police team, constituted to arrest those involved in female foeticide cases that had rocked the State, have arrested 12 more persons involved in sex determination of foetuses and female foeticide, said Mandya District Superintendent of Police (SP) Mallikarjun Baladandi.

Addressing media persons at his office in the town yesterday evening, the SP said that 12 persons, including prime accused and kingpin Abhishek and others (Veeresh, Puttaraju, Kumar, Sharadamma, Dasegowda, Lab Sathya, Meena, Mallikarjun, Somashekar, Rathnamma and Prema alias Parvathi) have been arrested.

The Police have seized two scanning machines, Maruti S-Cross car, Maruti Celerio car and a Mariti Omni van, three mobile phones from the accused. With these arrests, the total number of arrests in connection with the foeticide racket in the district has gone up to 30.

Continuing, the SP said that following a complaint from the Health Department Official Dr. Bettaswamy at Pandavapura Police Station on May 6 about illegal abortions being conducted at the quarters of Pandavapura Government Hospital D Group employee Ashvini, 12 out of 19 accused have been arrested and the remaining seven have  gone absconding.

In another case of female foeticide and sex determination in Melukote Police limits, out of seven accused, three have been arrested and four had gone absconding out of which three were arrested when they were on their way to determine the gender of the foetus in Bellur Police limits while one is absconding,  the SP added.

“Cases were also registered at Udayagiri Police Station in Mysuru city and Baiyappanahalli Police Station in Bengaluru,”    the SP said.

A Special Police Team was constituted to arrest all the absconding accused and the Special Police Team, which conducted operations, have nabbed prime accused Abhishek and Veeresh and interrogated them following which the other 10 accused were nabbed, SP Mallikarjuna said and added that it has already been announced to provide appreciation letter and cash prize to the Police personnel involved in the operation.

The SP further said that the accused, in order to not get caught, were using internet calls instead of regular calls and the Police finally nabbed them besides launching a hunt to nab other accused who                                                         are absconding.

District Health Officer (DHO) Dr. Mohan, Additional SPs Dr. Thimmaiah and Gangadharaswamy and others were present at the press meet.