Bengaluru: An expert committee on prevention of crime against women and children headed by V?S?Ugrappa has urged the State government to send a special squad to Belthangady to probe the large number of unnatural deaths of women in the last five years.

Ugrappa said that he was taken aback to learn that about 500 cases of unnatural deaths were registered in the taluk in five years. He said that as the district administration and the local police are clueless about the deaths, he wants the state government to constitute a special investigating squad.

Regarding the skewed sex ratio in Dakshina Kannada, Ugrappa said the reason could be female foeticide after illegal sex determination. He said there are 149 medical scanning centres in the district and there could be few which indulge in sex determination.