New Delhi: Five persons including two employees of a prominent multispeciality hospital in south east Delhi and three touts have been arrested on charges of running a kidney racket bringing donors from different parts of the country to the national capital.
The arrested accused include Aditya Singh and Shailesh Saxena, who worked as personal secretaries of Apollo hospital doctors for 3-4 years, said Mandeep Singh Randhawa, CP(south east).
Information was received that the members of the gang would come to Apollo Hospital on June 2 for holding a meeting with a donor and relatives of the recipient. A raid was conducted and Aseem Sikdar, Satya Prakash and Devashish Moulik were caught yesterday, he said.
The touts used to lure financially poor people from West Bengal, UP and other parts of the country for donating kidney in return of Rs 3-4 lakh and were brought to Delhi and accommodated in hotels.
“Medical tests of recipient and donor were conducted and once the compatibility match was done, operations were conducted at Apollo Hospital,” the officer said.
“We are cooperating and providing all information required to help the police in their investigation pertaining to the alleged kidney sale racket,” said a press statement by Indraprastha Apollo Hospital.
The police was working on information about the gang that was actively involved in illegal trade of human organs. “It was learnt during investigation that the gang members used to prepare forged papers to establish the relationship between the donors and the recipients and the staff of Apollo were also involved in this racket,” it said.
Interestingly, police got the lead about the gang after a fight involving a man and his wife whose kidney had been sold by the former without her consent, a police source said.
One of the arrested tout Devashish Moulik, a native of New Jalpaiguri in West Bengal was active since 2014 and he even made his wife Maumita to donate kidney a month back, Randhawa stated.
Another arrested tout Satya Prakash, who belonged to Kanpur(UP), had donated his kidney in 2014 and used to target potential donors and bring them to Delhi.
Sikdar was the coordinator of the gang and would look after lodging of the donor, laboratory tests, meeting with relatives of recipients and negotiations for money, he said.
