By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS
Kathmandu : Ignoring the threat of a protracted legal battle, a long jail term and a hostile public, India’s ‘Dr Horror’ – aka Amit Kumar who acquired the name after his alleged massive kidney transplant racket came to light last month – Friday said defiantly that he had done nothing wrong.
“It’s wrong,” fumed the 43-year-old, referring to his arrest and being put into police custody.
Amit Kumar, alias Santosh Rameshwar Raut, the current biggest media sensation in India and Nepal, had to be kept flanked by policemen while more cops cordoned off the room where he was produced for journalists.
“I have not done anything wrong. I have not duped anyone.”
Amit Kumar, arrested by Nepal Police from the tourist district of Chitwan in the Terai plains along the Indo-Nepal border Thursday and brought to Kathmandu under tight police escort, told the large media crowd that he would be released.
Wearing a black leather jacket to protect him from the cold and with his hair cut short, the man who has been dominating the headlines in India since last month looked tired but not afraid or apologetic.
“He was very confident,” said Deputy Superintendent of Police Sher Bahadur Basnet, who had headed the special team of Metropolitan Police that rushed to the Wildlife Lodge in Chitwan Thursday to arrest the fugitive.
“He said he had come to Nepal to open a kidney transplant hospital.”
This is not the first time that the controversial nursing home owner had come to Nepal.
Nepal Police said he had visited the country, from where he could have obtained a large number of kidney donors by fraudulent means, at least three times.
The last time was in December 2007, when he had come on an Etihaad Airlines flight via Dubai from Canada, where his family lives.
Either apprehending a crackdown in India or planning to spread his flourishing business wider, Amit Kumar had been seriously contemplating starting a similar operation in Nepal, where the law doesn’t have much teeth and corruption and political instability abet lawlessness.
While he himself came thrice to look for a suitable building or plot of land, his brother Jeevan Kumar fixed an associate, a Nepali named Pankaj Jha, to do the needful, police said.
Last year, Kumar’s accountant Yashpal Sharma came to Nepal to negotiate for the Badrinath Guest House in the downmarket Gongabhu area.
However, the deal fell through after the owner asked for Nepali Rs.1 million (approx $15,700).
A large number of the cleaners and OT staff at Ravat’s Star Max Life Care nursing home in Gurgaon were from Nepal, police said.
Police are still investigating the involvement of at least six of them, including Pankaj Jha.