Doctor claims he is a 'scapegoat' for India's botched operations
A doctor blamed for the deaths of 13 women in India in a botched mass sterilisation has said he is being made a scapegoat.
Dozens more women were left sickened after undergoing the Government-funded free sterilisation surgery, which is aimed at curbing the country's rapidly growing population.
Dr RK Gupta was arrested yesterday, four days after administering the fatal tubectomy operations at a hospital in the central state of Chhattisgarh, and faces charges of causing death by negligence.
Dr Gupta, though, claims his supply of post-op drugs was contaminated and said the state's chief medical officer should take the blame.
ITV News' Rebecca Barry reports:
Dr Gupta denied accusations the medical equipment he used during last Saturday's fatal mass sterilisation was rusty or dirty.
He is reported by the Reuters news agency to have carried out the mass surgery on 83 women in under three hours at a hospital in Chhattisgarh.
The local government has since banned medicines used at Dr Gupta's sterilisation camp, including the Indian-made brands of ciprofloxacin and ibuprofen.
Officers raided a local company that had provided the antibiotics, sealed their factories and summoned the company owners to face police questioning, state health officials told Reuters.
Dr Gupta said health workers gave the women ciprofloxacin and ibuprofen after the operations were carried out.
One of five doctors who have conducted post mortems since Saturday's tragedy said the initial results were inconclusive.