In his desperation for a son, a father of five daughters in UP’s Badaun allegedly ripped open the womb of his pregnant wife to find out what the gender of the foetus was. On Saturday, according to PTI, he wanted to know if his wife would deliver a son to him.

The man named Pannalal slit the stomach of his wife with a sharp object say the reports. Wife, 35, was seriously injured in the incident which took place in Nekpur locality under the Civil Lines police station area. Reports say the family of the woman, who was rushed to a Bareilly hospital in a serious condition, alleged that Pannalal wanted a son and committed the crime to know if it was male or female foetus.

The case was reported and a first information report (FIR) has been registered according to NDTV.

In what can only be called a loathsome crime, India is seeing increasing cases of crimes against women. Uttar Pradesh has a particularly high number.

UP Crime Rate on the Rise

Crimes against women are rising in Uttar Pradesh. The annual report of the National Crime Bureau Data (NCRB) shows a rape case is registered with the UP police every two hours and the state sees a crime against a child every 90 minutes. As per the data available for 2018, 144 girls below the age of eighteen were reportedly raped in 2018 against 139 in 2017.

Missing Girls

In 2018, shocking data from Uttarakhand state – with over 10 million population – shows that no girl child was born in 132 villages. This led to suspicions of sex-selective abortions. Read more here. 

Further a UN report says 4.6 lakh girls were ‘missing’ at birth in India each year from 2013 to 2017 due to sex selection at birth, which is banned in India by law. In fact over the last 50 years the number is ten times this figure. Read that detailed report here.