The remains of dozens of foetuses and newborn babies have been found in an abandoned well in India, apparently aborted or discarded after birth because they were female.

Police are investigating whether a clinic in the state of Orissa identified the infants’ sex before birth, which is illegal yet widespread in India, and then disposed of them at their parents’ request.

A 12-year-old boy raised the alarm after finding the remains of seven baby girls stuffed into bloody polythene bags in a disused well near the Krishna clinic in the district of Nayagarh on July 14. Police told The Times yesterday that they had found the skulls and body parts of 23 more infants over the weekend. Some reports now put the body count at as high as 37.

The find is the latest illustration of how widespread female foeticide and infanticide remain in India, despite repeated government attempts to eradicate the practices. Many Indian families still regard a daughter as a financial burden because tradition dictates that when she is married they must pay her husband’s family a large dowry. Sons are also preferred because they are considered stronger workers and because daughters traditionally look after their inlaws in old age, rather than their own parents.

The Government outlawed ultrasound gender tests for unborn babies in 1994, but prosecutions are rare and many families bribe doctors to get past the ban and then choose to abort if the child is a girl.

Estimates of the number of girls aborted annually vary widely. Last year an international team of researchers claimed that over the past two decades half a million female foetuses had been aborted each year in India, which has a population of 1.1 billion. The Indian Medical Association believes that the figure could be ten times higher.

The result is an increasingly severe gender imbalance, with 927 women for every 1,000 men, according to the 2001 census – down from 945 women per 1,000 men a decade earlier. That compares with a global average of 1,050 women for every 1,000 men.

The imbalance in Nayagarh, a poor rural area, is even more extreme, with an estimated 901 females for every 1,000 males – the worst ratio in all of Orissa’s 30 districts.

Yogesh Bahadur Khurania, a local police official, said that investigators had yet to establish the precise number and genders of the corpses found in the well.

But he confirmed that Sabita Sahu, the Krishna clinic’s owner, and Shyam Sahu, its manager, had been detained for questioning.

Tapasi Praharaj, a women’s rights activist, said that the Krishna clinic was one of 11 unlicensed clinics allegedly involved in an illegal abortion racket with local police and health officials. “They’re all in this nexus and they should all be punished,” she said, calling for the health minister of Orissa to resign.

“The Government is totally careless and doesn’t take any action. What we really need is for attitudes to change at every level of society.”

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