By IANS
Alwar (Rajasthan) : The kidney theft scam that has grabbed global headlines and involves a local doctor has had an unexpected fallout – many who have undergone surgeries recently are queuing up for checkups, fearing that their kidneys might have been stolen.
Tarachand, a resident of Pehal village in Alwar district, brought his 22-year-old son Rajveer for a check-up at the general hospital here.
“My son was kidnapped three years back from the village. The kidnappers left him back in the village after three months. At that time he had some marks of surgery on his stomach as well on his back. We asked our son about it but he said he did not remember from where he got these marks as he is mentally weak”, Tarachand said.
“After Alwar’s name was linked in the kidney racket, we decided to get him checked. Thank god, the doctors have told me both his kidneys are fine,” he added.
The “kidney phobia” struck Alwar, about 140 km from state capital Jaipur, as K.K. Agarwal, a doctor here, was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh police soon after the racket came to light Jan 24.
Agarwal is an anaesthetist and used to aid in surgeries in various hospitals in and around Alwar.
Amit Kumar alias Santosh Rameshwar Raut, the alleged mastermind behind the scam nabbed from Nepal last week, and his associates allegedly performed over 600 kidney transplants over the past decade.
They allegedly obtained kidneys illegally, often by force, from poor people and then transplanted these to needy patients who could pay their exorbitant charges.
The racket, which served clients from Britain, the US, Greece, Lebanon, Canada, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates among other countries, was busted Jan 24 in Gurgaon, a booming suburban town of Delhi.
Doctors here say that many people who had undergone surgical operations in the last couple of years have been visiting them requesting to see if they have got both kidneys intact or not, local media reported.