One Advocate’s Three-Decade-Long Fight Against Female Foeticide Exposed Rogue Doctors With 56 Decoy Ops

Trigger warning: Mention of abuse and violence

How many of them will you hug? 

How many of them will you help?

Advocate Varsha Deshpande’s counter-questions stump me. It’s been almost an hour since I’ve been listening to her recount her work in women’s rights advocacy; the cases are appalling: women battered by alcoholic husbands, toddlers who’ve watched their fathers stone their mothers to death, and who couldn’t even shelve the memory because the jury needed it as evidence. Unfairness colours these cases. And I allow myself a naive wish: I want to do something for them.

Three decades ago, Deshpande wished the same. And it shaped the leitmotif of her life’s work as a pioneer of women’s rights. Today, the stack of files in her office pales in comparison to her mental archives. Because even as cases are closed, her mind can’t forget the atrocity of each crime, each life lost, and each family torn apart.  

But every one of her stories, though visceral and confronting, doesn’t beg sympathy. They beg action. They urge policy shifts. And, she believes, every action is a step closer to the world sitting up and taking cognisance. 

Earlier this year, Deshpande won the 2025 United Nations Population Award in the ‘individual’ category. And as she did, her mind conjured images of all the pregnant women who were part of the 56 decoy operations she had helmed to weed out doctors performing illegal sex determination tests and female foeticides across India. 

“I received the award on behalf of those women. Though the idea of the decoy operations was mine, they braved the defence lawyers’ cross-examinations; accompanied me to the wrongdoers (the defaulting doctors), and the panchayats (village councils). They were not obligated to do it. But they did it as a commitment to women everywhere,” Deshpande notes.

She sees the award as a collective win for every Indian woman who is terrified for the fate of the baby girl in her womb. 

Sting operations and nabbing the killers of baby girls 

In the Beed district of Maharashtra, the mention of Dr Saraswati and Dr Sudam Munde sends shudders down people’s spines. The couple, notorious for their sex-determination practice, coupled with illegal sex-selective abortions, wouldn’t bat an eyelid before agreeing to abort the unwanted girl foetus detected on the sonogram — in an instant, wrestling from her a fair chance to live. 

It was an organised crime racket, Deshpande points out, adding that this compounded the difficulty of unearthing it.   

Every morning, pregnant women and their families thronged the Mundes’ practice. The women, subservient to patriarchy, had no say. If the mother-in-law wanted her to abort the baby girl, that’s exactly what would be done. But the Mundes were clueless that, camouflaged in this waiting room of gullible expectant mothers were decoys — pregnant women equipped with cameras, tape recorders, and a briefing from Deshpande on how to escape detection.  

The plan was straightforward. The women were to request a sex determination test, which — important to note — had been banned in India since 1994 under the ‘Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act (PCPNDT Act). If the Mundes were honest, they would refuse to do the test. If not, the hidden cameras would capture the illegality. 

One of the most successful decoy operations of its kind, the testimonies and evidence provided by these women got the doctor duo in Beed convicted to four years’ imprisonment. Another sting got Dr Mohan Farne from Islampur in Sangli sentenced to two years in jail, and Dr Kavita Londhe-Kamble from Karmala in Solapur to three years.

Taking the fight beyond sting operations

Fifty-six and counting, but Deshpande emphasises that the number of sting operations cannot be a yardstick of success. Simply blowing the whistle on the defaulting doctors is not enough; “I realised that no one was bothered to see the cases to a logical end. When out of 111 convicted in the cases, we saw the number of acquittals slowly increasing, we demanded to know why. Why weren’t these doctors being convicted? So, we asked for a legal review of 311 cases.” 

In most cases, she was shocked to find out that evidence had been tampered with. “The foetuses were being fed to dogs,” Deshpande shares. “We accuse wild animals of being savage, but we feed our own species to dogs? Even the wild beasts are not that violent.” 

Deshpande’s team would file cases against defaulting doctors under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act (2002); in 2004, her endeavour was formalised under the 'Lek Laadki Abhiyan (LLA)', which implemented these crackdowns in eight districts of Maharashtra having low child sex ratios — Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur, Sholapur, Ahmednagar, Pune, Beed and Mumbai. The programme was supported by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. 

Slowly and steadily, as more skeletons tumbled out of the closet, the number of convicted doctors began to rise, sending a silent warning to anyone who dared to defy the law. Deshpande is now eagerly awaiting the next census — as per the 2011 Census, Maharashtra’s child sex ratios in the 0-6 age group is the lowest in India: 883 girls for every 1,000 boys. She’s hopeful for an uptick in the sex ratio after these crackdowns. 

Of course, threats are a part of the job, she shares. But she credits public support for giving her a surer footing, and for keeping her team at 'Dalit Mahila Vikas Mandal' (an organisation she founded in 1990 to advance women’s rights and gender justice) going, as they crack the whip on women-related crimes.   

Helping women dream beyond an objectified existence 

At first glance, Sunita (name changed to preserve anonymity) appeared happy. But a closer look revealed her scars and bruises, each telling a story of pain. Her husband was an alcoholic who flew into rages and beat her. 

But Sunita refused to live separately. One day, she turned up at Deshpande’s office after being abused. Deshpande’s team called for the husband, who, upon turning up, coaxed Sunita to go home with him and not engage in any of the counselling sessions mandated by the team. The next day, her body was found. 

“Our society has male chauvinist traditions,” Deshpande notes, “Women, even after being abused, refuse to break away from these traditions.” This is where violence gets a chance to fester, she says. What she wants to work towards is an India where women are free from the weight of male validation.

Helping women take control

“Women make up a third of the workforce, but we continue to be invisible in the economic structure of India. We continue to struggle for gender equal budgets. Our in-laws' houses continue to be a courtroom where women are required to continuously prove themselves and be hurt. There’s a long road to challenge the patriarchy of India,” Deshpande says, questioning why women must remain in the footnotes when they can be the ones writing the story. 

To this end, the Dalit Mahila Vikas Mandal has initiated several projects to empower women. These include:

• Zunka Bhakri Kendra (1991): A food centre run by women deserted by their families.

• Samata Yuva Jagar: A programme that teaches adolescents to stand against dowry, child marriage, sex selection, and violence.

• Counselling centres: Offering legal aid and support for women victims of violence.

And for any woman looking for Deshpande, you don't have to head to court to find her. Instead, you'll find her among the people. “The Constitution works on the roads. We are catalysts to help people believe in the law and stand against injustice,” she shares. 

Before I let her go, I repeat her question to her, ‘But how many of them will you help?’ 

She replies, “As many as I can.”

Sources 

'Wanted: Pregnant decoys for sting operations to save the girl child': by Menaka Rao, Published on 23 July 2015.