A man once tasked with saving Maharashtra’s daughters has now been unmasked as one of their most prolific predators.

For decades, Dr. Chandrakant Gunda Gaikwad sat comfortably within the upper echelons of the State health establishment, serving as a district civil surgeon and assistant director. He was also part of the government’s ‘Save the Girls’ campaign for years.

Retirement did not signal an end to his medical career, but marked the expansion of a dark underground enterprise. Dr. Gaikwad was arrested by the Kolhapur police on July 31 for allegedly orchestrating a sophisticated female foeticide ring. During interrogation, he allegedly admitted to performing around 200 to 250 illegal abortions, the police said.

The racket operated out of Kolhapur in western Maharashtra, the home district of State Health Minister Prakash Abitkar. The Minister called it a “serious matter” that a former health official was involved in such a crime. He announced that the State will soon introduce a new law to invoke the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act against female foeticide, ensuring that doctors, family members, pharmacists, and anyone else supporting the crime face prosecution.

However, when mediapersons pressed the Minister about how implicated doctors and individuals routinely escape punishment and continue running their rackets after securing bail, he had no concrete answer. It underscored a grim reality: culprits easily slip through the cracks and accountability remains elusive.

According to Sunanda Patil, an octogenarian and resident of Kolhapur, female foeticide “is nothing new”. She said women face two choices: empty their wombs if it is a girl, or keep giving birth until a son is born. She chose the second option, delivering three daughters before finally having a son. She considers herself lucky that her husband stopped there.

Quiet tragedies

For daily wage worker Maloji Kharat and his agricultural worker wife Lankabai, the reality was starkly different. By 38, Ms. Lankabai had 21 pregnancies and struggled to recall the names of all her children. Of her 11 surviving children, nine are girls. The other 10 died either shortly after birth or during delivery. When their story was reported a few years ago, the couple vanished from public view.

Beed district in the Marathwada region has long carried a dark reputation for illegal abortion rings. The most notorious was run by Dr. Sudam Munde and Dr. Saraswati Munde from Parali who operated a sex determination racket for years.

In one of the most chilling revelations, investigators found that the Mundes fed aborted female foetuses to a pack of dogs to hide the evidence, reportedly aborting up to 20 female foetuses a day for decades.

Beed-based activist Manisha Tokale noted that it has been over a decade since the Munde case, yet illegal abortion networks continue to operate in secret. The issue makes headlines briefly when a case is uncovered, she said, before things slip right back to normal.

This generational pressure drives quiet tragedies across the State. After delivering two sons, Renu (name changed) became pregnant a third time. Her husband, a daily wage worker, expected another boy. Fearing that her family history of having only daughters meant she would carry the same genes, he routinely took her for ultrasound tests.

“We went, had a sonography, and the family suggested abortion,” Ms. Renu said, without needing to specify that the third child was a girl. Phrases like “khali karun ye (empty it and come back)” or “tapasun baghu (let us check)” echo across both rural and urban Maharashtra. When she went to a private clinic in Beed for the abortion, the doctor botched the procedure. She said the clean-up was not done properly, leaving her with lasting physical pain and nowhere to turn for justice.

According to Roopa Shah, founder of the Kolhapur-based Dilasa Samajik Vishwast Sanstha, female foeticide happens everywhere in the State without exception.

Society’s mindset has not changed, regardless of whether people live in rural or urban areas, or are rich or poor, she said.

Having spent three decades fighting crimes like child marriage and female foeticide, Ms. Shah feels conventional measures have utterly failed. Because the police, courts, administration, and government have not been able to stop these atrocities, she believes the time has come for women to take a stand themselves. “It is not easy though,” she said.

Deep-rooted bias

The National Family Health Survey 2019-21 offers a window into the mindset of this social fabric. Maharashtra has shown a strong preference for sons. While 9% of women and 12% of men express a desire for more sons than daughters, only 4-5% of women and men want more daughters. A large majority of women and men wish to have at least one son while fewer desire at least one daughter. These figures capture a deep-rooted gender bias in the State, one that starts at birth and follows girls throughout their lives.

“Those who survive have to carry the burden of being a girl forever,” said Dhondabai Ningule, a resident of Dharashiv district.

In Marathi households, names like Dhondabai, derived from dhonda (stone), or Nakushi (unwanted) are often given to girls born merely as stopgap arrangements until a son arrives, serving as a constant, grudging reminder from their families of their unwanted existence.

Published - August 11, 2026 01:29 am IST