Powerful camapign on female foeticide launched in Punjab

Ludhiana: In an effort to give voice to the unborn girl child,activists in Punjab have launched a powerful campaign against female foeticide that includes inviting people for an ‘Antim ardas’, or last rites. “I am daughter of India. I am like your daughters who are playing in your premises, who are bringing laurels to the nation like Sunita Williams, Kiran Bedi, Kalpana Chawla, Sania Mirza etc. But there is difference between me and all of you as I have been killed in the womb of my mother itself,” read the invite from the Universal Public Service Organisation (UPSO,a an NGO leading this campaign.

The invitation to the ‘Antim ardas’ at a gurdwara could perhaps qualify to be the most powerful message against female foeticide in a state. In first Ardas over 400 people came for the prayer meeting held by the NGO at the Gurdwara Guru Nanak Darbar in Daba village. They plan to take this further and will be going to Hardwar (In Uttarakhand) and Kiratpur Sahib (in Punjab's Ropar district) for performing the final rites of Punjab's unborn daughters. At the ceremony, touching poems against female foeticide, the plight of the girl child and stories from holy scriptures were told to the gathering to drive home the point.