By IANS
Kathmandu/New Delhi : Amit Kumar, the alleged mastermind of the kidney trade racket that has shocked India, was Saturday evening brought to New Delhi from Kathmandu amid tight security and huge media attention.
Amit Kumar alias Santosh Rameshwar Raut will be taken to the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) headquarters where he will be interrogated before being produced in a court.
“It is still to be decided in which court we will produce Amit Kumar,” CBI special director Madan Lal said.
CIB sources said a medical team including a psychiatrist was present at the headquarters for a health check-up of the accused.
A CBI team of two officials along with the 43-year-old Ayurvedic doctor flew back on the Air India flight IC 814 and arrived at the Indira Gandhi International Airport here at about 6.30 p.m.
CBI spokesman G. Mohanty said that the speedy deportation was possible due to the agency’s diplomatic ties with Nepal authorities.
Earlier, Nepal handed Amit Kumar over to the CBI team, revising an earlier decision to try him in Nepal for violating local laws.
Indian embassy officials in Kathmandu told IANS that Amit Kumar, held in the custody of Nepal Police since his arrest from a holiday resort in southern Nepal Thursday, had been handed over to the CBI team that had flown to Kathmandu soon after the arrest.
Nepal’s surprise decision came under immense pressure from Indian authorities, officials in Kathmandu said.
Earlier, Nepal Police said Amit Kumar would be produced in a Nepalese court Sunday and charged with violating the Foreign Currency Regulation Act.
The charge was meant to keep him in police remand till investigations were completed.
However, a change was seen when Peace and Reconstruction Minister Ram Chandra Poudel, the senior most minister in the cabinet after Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, said Saturday afternoon that the government was consulting legal experts and could waive the charge against Amit Kumar in Nepal.
“Since he is an Indian citizen and did not commit any crime in Nepal, we could deport him to India,” Poudel had said.
Though a cabinet meeting was to have decided the issue Sunday, Indian authorities pulled a major victory by persuading Nepal to part with Amit Kumar before that.
Amit Kumar, the man allegedly behind 600 illegal kidney transplants, was arrested Thursday evening from a hotel near the India-Nepal border and taken to Kathmandu early Friday for interrogation.
Amit Kumar and his associates allegedly obtained kidneys illegally, often through force, from poor people and then transplanted them to needy patients who could pay their exorbitant charges.
The ring, which served clients from Britain, the US, Greece, Lebanon, Canada, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, was busted Jan 24 in Gurgaon, a booming suburban town of Delhi.