A doctor in Maharashtra was arrested for allegedly carrying out three illegal abortions, including on a minor girl, police said on Sunday.

Dr. Shivaji Sanap, who runs a private maternity clinic on Jalna Road in the city, has been booked under various sections of IPC, Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act and Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, for abortions performed beyond five months of pregnancy.

Two female foetuses were found dumped in the dry basin of Bindusara river in the city on Saturday, Superintendent of Police Dattatray Mandlik told reporters on Sunday.

Stating the abortions in these two cases had been carried out at Dr. Sanap’s clinic, Mr. Mandlik said, one was an unmarried girl from Pune and the other a married woman from Georai tehsil of Beed district.

According to the post-mortem report of the two female foetuses, one was eight months and six days, while the other was of five months and eight days, Mr. Mandlik said.

While the unmarried girl and the woman had not been arrested as they were being treated at a hospital, Mr. Mandlik said that the girl’s father and the woman’s husband had been arrested.

On Saturday, police also held two women, who worked at Dr. Sanap’s hospital, for allegedly dumping the two foetuses in the river, police said.

In addition to these two illegal abortion cases, investigations revealed another case in which a six-month foetus of a 17-year-old unmarried girl was aborted at the same hospital, police said.

A case has been registered against the teenaged girl, her father, mother and Dr. Sanap, police inspector Sanjay Lohkare said.

The aborted female foetus in this case was taken to Kakad-Hira village of Patoda tehsil in the district by the girl’s parents and police recovered the foetus covered in a cloth from their house.

Meanwhile, Aurangabad divisional commissioner Bhaskar Munde on Sunday said that from now on the hospitals in Beed city and Ambajogai and Parli tehsils will be inspected regularly to curb illegal abortions.