A 50-year-old woman tout was arrested for allegedly conducting a sex determination test in the Vigyan Nagar area of Kota, Rajasthan, officials said today.

She was produced before court on 13 February, which sent her to judicial custody till February 27. The woman, a resident of the Indira colony slum area in Vigyan Nagar, was last evening arrested outside a sonography and diagnostic centre, circle in-charge of Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act (PCPNDT) bureau of investigation Sita Ram said. An amount of Rs 24,000 that the woman tout charged for carrying out the test was also recovered from her possession, he said. The accused worked as a midwife.

The role of the doctor, who carried out the sonography test at the sonography and diagnostic centre, is also suspected. However, his involvement in primary interrogation and inquiry has not been proved so far, Ram said. The active tracker device attached with the sonograpy machine is yet to be examined to ascertain the involvement of the doctor, he added.

The PCPNDT cell received a tip off about the suspected sex determination tests and after verification a decoy operation was carried out yesterday, Rajiv Loachan, member of decoy team and PCPNDT Bundi district coordinator, said. The woman tout demanded Rs 25,000 for the sex determination test from the pregnant woman and her attendant, sent to her as bogus customers, by the bureau, he said, adding the tout after accepting the money took the bogus customer to the sonography and diagnostic centre last evening.

After the test was carried out, the tout took the pregnant woman outside the centre and asked her to wait for the result. She then returned after a few minutes and told her that the doctor "confirmed" the child's gender as female, Loachan said. However, it is beleived that she did not see the test but told the result with her own "imagination", he said. When the doctor was interrogated, he expressed ignorance about the sex determination test, but said he only conducted the routine sonogrpahy test, Loachan said.