Gurgaon, January 25
The police has unearthed a kidney transplant racket with the arrest of five persons, including a doctor and quack, after a raid at a private hospital in Gurgaon yesterday night.

The gang involved in the racket not only catered to the demands of kidney in India but also of Nepal, Lebanon, Dubai and Greece.

Two of those arrested have been identified as Upendra, an MBBS from Ballabhgarh, and a quack, Jagdish.

Most of the victims whose kidneys had been removed belonged to poor families in western Uttar Pradesh.

The arrests were made after it was found that the doctors had removed kidneys of three labourers from Uttar Pradesh without their knowledge. They were brought to Delhi with lure of jobs.

Gurgaon police commissioner Mohinder Lal said the Gurgaon and the UP police jointly raided a house in Sector 23, Palam Vihar, Gurgaon.

The alleged mastermind of the racket, a surgeon named Dr Amit Kumar, and two other doctors, Jeevan Kumar and Saraj, were still absconding.

He said raid at another residence of Kumar in DLF City revealed that the doctor was using his house for the sale of kidneys.

Three Greek nationals and a NRI couple from Britain, who were present at the house, had been detained for questioning. He said it was believed that the human organ trafficking had several international links also.

All doctors were from Faridabad in Haryana and Upendra Kumar reportedly owned a private hospital there.

During preliminary investigations, Upendra revealed that they had sold between 400 and 500 kidneys in the past six to seven years. They used to pay between Rs 50,000 and 1 lakh to the person whose kidney was taken out and charged Rs 10 lakh to Rs 18 lakh from the buyers.

Upender operated the racket through his driver Harpal, who used to visit possible places in UP to find a victim for transplantation.

Lal said the racket came to light when one of the labourers from Moradabad escaped from the grip of the gang and informed the police about the activities of the doctors.

He said three cases had already been registered against Upender at Andhra Pradesh and Nizamudin in 2000 Mumbai in 2005.

Mumbai: The police today claimed that Gurgaon kidney racket kingpin Dr Amit Kumar was wanted not only in the case unearthed on Thursday, but also in many similar cases, including the 1993 Mumbai case.

Joint commissioner of police Rakesh Maria said: “We are quiet sure that Dr Amit Kumar is the same Dr Santosh Raut, who was arrested by the city police in a similar kidney racket that came to light in 1993.”

Later, he jumped bail in 1994 and since then he is absconding. He is also wanted in similar cases in Jaipur, Guntur, Hyderabad and Mumbai.

In 1993 case, the city police had arrested around 12 persons, including few kidney transplant experts. Trial in the case was going on, Maria said. Dr Raut had changed his name and also applied for a Canada passport.

Lucknow: The police on Friday carried out raids to arrest those involved in a kidney transplant racket busted in Gurgaon on Thursday. The UP police acted following complaints from the victims in Moradabad, who were generally from poor families. They used to lure people at railway stations and bus stands, said Pappu, on whose complaint the police carried out raids. — UNI

Ballabgarh, January 25
The police along with a team from the health department and income tax raided the local Sadbhavana/Sreemram Hospital following intimation from the Gurgaon police in the wake of arrest of its proprietor and head, Dr Upender Rastogi, in connection with the trade and transplantation of human kidneys.

District police chief Alok Mittal said the health department team had already submitted its report suspecting three cases of kidney transplant.

He said a notebook was seized during the raid in which 39 names had been written and amount of money had been recorded.

About 60 bank accounts in Faridabad, Gurgaon, Jaipur and Delhi in the name of Rastogi and his wife Dr Archana as well as some with different names have been seized.

Besides, documents pertaining to about 30 registry deeds of land in Gurgaon, Sohna, Merut, Faridabad have also been seized.

Gurgaon, January 25
The gang involved in human organ trafficking was once again found running their business from the same segment where they had been arrested eight years ago for their involvement in the same business.

The alleged mastermind behind the racket, Dr Amit Kumar, who has been in this business for more than a decade, had once again given a slip to the police and has absconded.

The police said in 2000, the Delhi police had arrested Amit Kumar and Jeevan Kumar for illegal kidney transplantations.

Amit Kumar used to transplant kidneys at Liberty Hospital in Gurgaon till October 2000 and after that he left from there and started operating from Aashish Surgical Home in Faridabad. He was on the verge of spreading his operations to Sri Ram Hospital in Ballabhgarh when the police caught him.

In this very case also, the diagnosis were made at Jeevan Kumar’s Diagnostic Centre in West Delhi’s Karol Bagh to establish compatibility with potential recipients. The donors were heavily sedated long before they arrived at the hospital for surgery so that they could not identify the hospital. According to the police, Jeevan Kumar was not even a qualified medical practitioner.

Interestingly, the racket that was unraveled yesterday had names of both the accused, who were arrested eight years ago.