Girls are unwanted – man kills his wife because she gave birth to five girls but no son

A reasonably well-to-do man has reportedly killed his wife with a sickle because she had given birth to five girls when he wanted a son. The man from a village in Sholapur owns 11 acres of farmland in the village and the family lives in a two-storey building.
This sordid incident has sent shocked the community of 5,500 strong apart from activists who have been championing the cause of the girl child and fighting against female feticide as well as for the rights of the girl child.
The man has confessed to the crime and the police have seized the sickle and clothes soaked in blood from the house.
The desire to have a son in the family invariably puts a spoke in many families and when girls are born, the mother is looked down upon and the girl is neglected even though society cries itself hoarse on the subject of protecting the girl child.
Female feticide is common and laws are available that ban clinical sex determination tests in order to know the sex of the unborn child – even then instances of this practice keep surfacing from time to time. In 2011, fifteen female fetuses were found in jars left on a rubbish dump by children who had been playing in the area in Kishanganj, Bihar.