By IANS
Gurgaon : Five people, including a doctor were arrested here for what the police describe as a lucrative trade in body parts. The five were luring poor men from Uttar Pradesh into parting with their kidneys, which then were sold to clients in India as well as abroad, the police said Friday.
Gurgaon Police Commissioner Mahender Lal said the arrested doctor, identified as Upendra Kumar, along with surgeons Amit Kumar, Jeevan Kumar and Saraj Kumar, was running the racket at a private hospital in a house in Sector 23 of this city for the past three years.
Upendra, a resident of Ballabgarh, and four agents identified as Pappu, Nosad, Gayasu Deen (residents of Meerut) and Jagdish of Ballabgarh were arrested. Search is on for the kingpin of the racket, Amit Kumar, and other doctors involved in it.
The group, which ran the body parts trade in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi earlier, moved to Gurgaon, a suburb of the national capital, three years ago.
“In the past eight-nine years, they have removed the kidneys of more than 600 underprivileged people of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh on the pretext of giving them jobs, money, and even threatening them at gun point,” Lal said.
“They used to pay the victims a paltry amount of Rs.50,000 to Rs.100,000, but were charging between Rs.1 million to Rs.2 million from their national and international clients from Lebanon, Dubai, the US, Canada, Britain, Saudi Arabia, and Greece,” Lal told reporters.
The racket came to light after a few labourers from Moradabad town in Uttar Pradesh told the police that an agent had been going there regularly and taking four to five men with him for the last few months.
The police swung into action after an agent approached them a few days ago after his tiff with other associates over splitting the money.
The Moradabad and Gurgaon police conducted searches late Thursday at a Palam Vihar house, owned by Amit Kumar, which was being used as a secret hospital for kidney transplantation.
To their utter shock, the police found the basement of the two-storied house stacked with surgical tools and other apparatus.
The police rescued five people – identified as Sakil of Ghaziabad, Vasim of Ahmedabad, Salim of Kotwali and Ajay and Sanjay Kumar of Meerut.
Sakil, Vasim and Salim had already had their kidneys removed, while Ajay and Sanjay were to undergo surgery in a day or two, the police said.
“I was brought here after being told that I would be given a job,” one of the victims told IANS. “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,” he added.
Two patients, Lucky Garg of Ghaziabad and Pawan Anand of Delhi to whom the kidneys were transplanted, had to be admitted to the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital as they were bleeding profusely, said Lal.
Upendra and his driver agent Jagdish were arrested from the Gurgaon house and on their instance a guesthouse in DLF area was also checked.
“We found five foreigners, 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, in the guest house. Joy Mehtal and Heleni Kitcocy were the patients and the others were accompanying them,” Lal said.
“We have detained them and more persons are likely to be arrested for receiving organs illegally,” said the police official, adding that documents recovered from the guesthouse, run by the gang, suggests that they had received requests for similar kidney transplants from across the world.
A senior police official said: “We don’t rule out their running a well-established network with other countries as well.”
Police said teams have fanned out in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh to ascertain the identity of other victims and arrest the absconding people.