Doctors, meanwhile, complain that the campaign against the testing is overzealous. After the failed raid in Ambala, inspectors revoked the clinic's ultrasound certificate because the office did not have a proper referral form for 4 of the 98 ultrasound tests it performed in September.
"All of the doctors are becoming clerks," said Dr. Namrata Madan, who runs the clinic and who refused to perform the ultrasound test on the decoy.
Here in Fatehgarh Sahib, the top local health official, Dr. Parshotam Lal Goel, said he had closed two clinics for improper record keeping, but said he did not use decoys. M.P. Arora, the district's No. 2 government administrator, questioned the validity of the census figures showing that the district had the greatest gender imbalance in the nation.
"There must be some technical error in the figure," Arora said.
On a recent afternoon, a young Indian woman working as an interpreter for The New York Times walked into the Sood medical clinic on one of Fatehgarh Sahib's main thoroughfares. She asked about sex determination tests.
Instead of telling her the tests were illegal, a male and female employee quizzed the young woman about where she was from and why she was asking. After several minutes of questioning, the man suggested the young lady return to the clinic in a few hours.
"Come later," he said. "We can talk later."
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