Dr M Ranawat, the implementing officer for the PNDT Act, said, “All the four doctors will be convicted sooner or later and their MCI registration will be automatically cancelled along with the verdict. However, until the court gives its verdict, we cannot restrict these doctors from practising. Until then their sonography machines have been sealed.”

He said, “In the earlier two cases, which were on the basis of deficiency of records, the accused were arrested for a day and fined Rs 1,000. But, most cases went against us in the court. We therefore had to resort to sting operations to establish terror in the minds of the offenders.”

“Although, each sting operation takes a lot of time and requires involvement of at least 50 people at various levels, the chances of the plan leak is high. But it still works as the offenders are qualified doctors who are definitely afraid of going to jails,” said Ranawat.