Mumbai (AsiaNews) – “It is horrible to think that human beings have been eliminated only because they were female. Our baby girls have been killed and this is properly speaking murder. It shows how much it has become customary to eliminate girls who are just born or still in the womb,” charged Mgr Oswald Gracias, archbishop of Mumbay and chairman of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CCBI). Unable to hide his anger and pain, he talks about yesterday’s finding of some 30 foetuses and body parts from baby girls inside an abandoned well near a private clinic in the state of Orissa.

Police suspect that the remains belong to children thrown into the well right after birth (or as a result of abortions) in a clinic in Nagayath District, some 90 kilometres north-west of Bhubaneshwar.

“Rules are not enough to solve the problem,” said the archbishop of Mumbai. “We must all fight in our own way to ensure that this practice is abandoned.” Abortion is a “diabolic” practice and is worse when it is performed “for sex selection.” To this effect, “the training of medical and support staff becomes important.”

“For this reason we had nuns get medical training so that they can provide treatment and care in the remotest rural areas of the country,” archbishop Gracias said. “The catholic Church has always given great importance and valued life irrespective of sex.

A long term solution to the problem should involve “better socioeconomic and environmental conditions so that baby girls and boys have the same rights and the same importance.”

According to official estimates, up to 10 million baby girls were killed by their parents in the past 20 years.

Last month a New Delhi doctor was arrested for performing more than 260 illegal abortions.