Dr K. K. Sharma, Civil Surgeon, Amritsar, comes out of Durgiana police chowki after appearing before the SIT on Monday. — Photo Rajiv Sharma

Mr S.K. Sharma, IG (Zonal), talking to this correspondent, said during the scrutiny of records of Kakkar Hospital, Amritsar, it was found that addresses given by the recipients and donors in 34 kidney transplant cases were fake. “We have sent registered summons to recipients and donors in 34 cases to appear before the SIT for investigation into the whole racket, which were returned undelivered due to fake addresses. Besides, the police parties, which went personally to check about the identity of the patients and donors at their Amritsar-based addresses, noted in the official records of Kakkar Hospital, returned empty handed,” Mr Sharma added.

Mr Sharma said it was established that members of Authorisation Committee, middlemen and doctors used unscrupulous means to mint money. “We are trying to establish the identity of recipients and donors although it is a very difficult task to identify their antecedents in the present context. In most of the cases, the donors are shown as domestic servants, who had been shown as donating their kidneys out of love and affection for their employers,” he added.

The names of recipients figured in the list of 34 kidney transplant cases include Sudhir Kumar, Ashok Sachdeva, Suresh Kumar, Jagdish Bahl, Sobha Devi, Jagmohan Gupta, Ashok Dhingra, Beena Sharma, Gyanti Gupta, S.M. Batra, Geeta Gupta, Ram Niwas Gupta, Kamal Rastogi, Balwinder Singh, Ram Phal, Shanti Devi, Anju Mehta, Sudesh Rani, Protiva, Subash Jain, Sham Sunder, Anil Jain, Meenu, Kewal Krishan Kwatra, D.R. Sharma, Neeta Rai, Chander Kant Shah, Inderpali Gujral, Sulakhan Singh, Satya Naryan, Rajinderpal Singh, Anil Kumar, Sheela Devi and Tilak Raj. While 28 recipients were shown as residents of Amritsar, the remaining were shown as residents of Ludhiana, Sangrur and Gurdaspur.

Mr Sharma revealed that they had enough documentary and material evidence against members of Authorisation Committee, doctors and middlemen, who fleeced innocent donors to mint crores of rupees using illegal means. “We have also issued summons to two doctors of a Jalandhar-based hospital to join the investigation in the ongoing probe,” Mr Sharma added.

Amritsar: Mr S.K. Sharma, IG (Jalandhar zone), who heads the Special Investigation Team (SIT), on Monday reportedly briefed the Chief Minister, Capt Amarinder Singh, about the progress of investigation into the kidney racket. What transpired at the meeting, however, could not be ascertained.

However, when contacted on the telephone, Mr Sharma denied that the meeting was about the kidney racket. He claimed that it was a routine affair.

Meanwhile, aides of Dr P.K. Sareen, prime accused in the racket and Civil Surgeon, Dr K.K. Sharma, and member of the authorisation committee appeared before the SIT at Durgiana police chowki here today. Mr Kunwar Vijay Partap Singh, SP (City) and member of the SIT said the Civil Surgeon and aides of associates of Dr Sareen were not cooperating with investigating team. He said they would be summoned again in connection with the investigation. The SIT had already sent summons to more than 400 recipients of kidneys, including certain influential persons, to join the investigation.

Intriguingly, the SIT has excluded judicial officers who attested the affidavits on the basis of ‘wrong information’. Mr Sharma said they (the judicial officers) were not being asked to join the investigation as such a step would deviate from the ‘real investigation’.

Meanwhile, a breakaway group of the Punjab Nursing Association sought fair investigation into the kidney trade. In a written press statement, Ms Raj Bedi Anand, general secretary of the association, alleged that the medical fraternity was being defamed on the basis of ‘baseless’ allegations. The association charged the police for ‘biased’ investigation. The association, however, alleged that Ms Jeewanjot Kaur and Ms Gurcharan Kaur had given a ‘misleading’ statement to the Press that nurses had not joined protest rallies against the arrest of doctors. However, Ms Gurcharan Kaur, state secretary of the Punjab Nurses Association claimed that nurses had already dissociated themselves from the protest.