By IANS
Gurgaon : Four doctors were carrying on a thriving illegal trade in body parts for the past eight years during which they beguiled more than 600 poor people into parting with their kidneys. They were even arrested thrice in the past, the police said Friday after busting the racket.
The doctors, who supplied the kidneys to national and international clients, were operating secretly from a residential apartment in this city on the outskirts of the national capital.
Gurgaon Police Commissioner Mahender Lal told IANS that the doctors – kingpin behind the illicit trade Amit Kumar and Jiwan Kumar (both surgeons), Upendra Kumar (physician) and Saraj Kumar (anaesthesiologist) – had been arrested thrice before on the charges of illegal human organ transplants in Delhi, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.
“The first case was registered against them in 2000, when Delhi Police arrested them from the Nizamuddin area. In 2001, they were held by Andhra Pradesh Police in Guntur district. A similar case was also registered against them in Mahim, (Mumbai), Maharashtra,” Lal said.
The racket in sale of human organs came to light after a few labourers from Moradabad town in Uttar Pradesh told the police that an agent had been visiting the place regularly and taking along four to five men for the last few months.
The Moradabad and Gurgaon police conducted searches late Thursday at a Palam Vihar house, owned by Amit Kumar. The house was being used by the doctors as a secret hospital for kidney transplantations.
The police arrested Upendra, who also runs the Shri Ram Hospital in Ballabgarh, and four agents – identified as Pappu, Nosad, Gayasu Deen (residents of Meerut) and Jagdish of Ballabgarh.
Lal said: “We have sounded an alert at all airports and seaports across the country to make sure that the accused doctors don’t flee the country. We suspect that Amit might be a Canadian NRI as he visits that country very often.”
According to the police, the doctors and their agents used to lure labourers from Uttar Pradesh, especially from Meerut and Moradabad, offering to help them get jobs.
The victims would be taken to Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh, adjoining Delhi, and then brought to Gurgaon’s Palam Vihar house for surgery to remove their kidneys – either at gunpoint or by offering them a paltry amount.
The doctors had even put up a board at their secret hospital with the names of advocates J.K. Sud and Jitender Kasana. There was no board to indicate that it was a private nursing home.
A man who was rescued by police told IANS: “I was brought here after being told that I would be given a job. Then I was taken to the hospital and told that I would have to undergo a medical examination as per government rules before I can be employed.”
“But at night someone came to me and said my kidney would be removed and I would be paid Rs.50,000 for it. I was told I would be killed if I refused to undergo the operation.”
Lal said: “The doctors used to send their agents to Meerut, Moradabad and Ghaziabad to identify healthy people who could be used for the illegal kidney racket.”
“Arrested doctor Upendra in his interrogation revealed that they had converted a car into a lab, where their agents used to collect and test blood samples to identify possible victims. We have seized the car,” Lal said.
The police also detained five foreigners – identified as Joy Mehtal, 53, his wife Sonam Joy, 52, a US based NRI couple, and three Greek citizens Leonida Dayasi, 56, Leonidas Dayasi, 63, and Heleni Kitcocy, 53, from the guest house run by the doctors in DLF area.
Joy Mehtal and Heleni Kitcocy were the patients who were to receive the kidneys, while the others were accompanying them.
Asked about how they found clients, Lal said the doctors and their agents would keep an eye on patients visiting urology departments in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh hospitals.
“The doctors used to contact mainly those patients on dialysis and in dire need of a kidney. They used to charge their clients anything between Rs.2 to 2 million,” Lal said.
Lal said documents recovered from the guesthouse suggest that they had clients from Lebanon, Dubai, US, Canada, Britain, Saudi Arabia, and Greece.
“It is suspected that they were getting international clients through the Internet, but we are verifying the facts,” he added.