By IANS
Bhubaneswar : Police have recovered 23 more skeletal remains of female foetuses from Orissa's Nayagarh district, where seven such foetuses were found about 10 days ago, officials said Monday.
Police have also arrested two people, including the manager of a nursing home from the premises of which the latest skeletal remains were recovered, a senior police official told IANS.
Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had ordered a Crime Branch probe after local residents found seven female foetuses July 14 inside a cave at Pratapgarh, near Duburi in Nayagarh district, some 100 km from here.
The foetuses were six to eight months old. They were packed in polythene bags.
The Crime Branch raided many private nursing homes and ultra-sound clinics in the district Sunday, the official said. The raids are continuing.
The latest remains were found Sunday from an abandoned well near Nabaghanpur village, 2.5 km from Nayagarh town, the official said. The well is inside the premises of Krishna Nursing Home.
The manager and an employee of the nursing home have been arrested. The nursing home officials claimed the well was built to dump medical waste.
A group of social activists who had visited the area early this week alleged that many unregistered private nursing clinics were involved in the crime.
"They conduct ultrasound tests to determine the sex of a foetus, after which abortions are performed if it is found to be a female," child rights activist Anuradha Mohanty told IANS.
Prenatal sex selection and selective abortion are banned in India.