By IANS
New Delhi : Official India may be confident of bringing alleged kidney racket mastermind Amit Kumar here soon to face trial, but authorities concede privately that it may not be such an easy process.
Minister of State for Home Sri Prakash Jaiswal and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director Vijay Shankar said all efforts would be made to extradite Amit Kumar aka Santosh Rameshwar Raut to India at the earliest.
Amit Kumar was dramatically arrested at a hotel near the India-Nepal border Thursday evening, but the man sought in India for two weeks has claimed he is innocent of wrongdoing.
“We have very good relations with our neighbour Nepal. It will not be a problem in extraditing Amit Kumar,” Jaiswal said.
Dubbed ‘doctor horror’, Amit and his associates allegedly obtained kidneys of nearly 600 people illegally or under force from poor people. These were then sold to patients from India and abroad for exorbitant prices.
A formal request for extradition has already been sent to Nepal, but home ministry officials said it might take up to a fortnight for the process to be completed.
An external affairs ministry spokesperson said: “Given the nature of the case and the close cooperation that exists between legal and security authorities between India and Nepal, we expect that Amit would be handed over to the Indian authorities at the earliest.”
India may have enough evidence to nail Amit Kumar. But some officials admit that the optimism on his extradition may be misplaced as Nepal might decide to try him for violating Nepalese laws and then only hand him over to India.
A CBI official told IANS that India and Nepal do not have an extradition treaty, which itself is a serious blow.
“Then the accused has been accused of violating Nepal’s foreign currency laws and is also suspected to be involved in similar rackets in that country,” the official said. “The Nepalese police may want to complete their investigations first.
“Our best chances lie in deportation, which depends on how the Indian government takes up the issue with its Nepalese counterpart.”
Once he is produced in a court in Nepal, then India would only be left with the option of extradition under the provisions of five-decade-old Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), another official added.
The MLAT was signed in 1953 for transfer of people arrested for alleged crimes in each other’s territory.
India and Nepal had initialled an extradition treaty in January 2005 at the level of home secretaries, which was expected to be signed later by the home ministers of the two countries.
The treaty could not, however, be signed by the home ministers due to some lingering differences over portions of the draft. Invoking it to spur extradition of Kumar may not help, a source said.
A senior police official added: “If India goes for extradition, then we have to wait for long to lay hands on him. An extradition plea will go through the lower court and then higher courts.
“The process will take a long time, and in between the accused may be let off on bail due to less stringent laws in Nepal.”
Upendra Kant Arryal, the senior superintendent of police at the Metropolitan Police Crime Division in Kathmandu, told IANS that Amit had been slapped with the charge of violating the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act.
This could get him four years in prison and a fine of over Nepali Rs.4 million (approx $630,000).
“Police will now investigate if Amit Kumar conduced any clandestine transplants in Nepal or duped any Nepalis into parting with a kidney under fraudulent promises,” Arryal said.
Even after all investigations are complete and the law has taken its own course in Nepal, he will not be able to walk out a free man.
Arryal said the police would then consider the Interpol alert and deport him to India.