Authorities bust interstate kidney transplant racket in Gurugram

Donors and recipients both have been identified as Bangladeshis, who were taken to Jaipur for the surgeries in two private hospitals there, according to investigators

The Gurugram police on Thursday claimed to have busted an illegal kidney transplant racket involving people from Bangladesh who were allegedly lured by through advertisements on Facebook, officers aware of the matter said.

The Bangladeshi donors told the police that they were contacted by a middleman from the gang and they immediately agreed to sell their kidneys as they were in dire need of money. (Representational Image)

Alok Mittal, additional director general of police (CID), Haryana, a joint raid by a team of the chief minister’s flying squad, district health department and the Gurugram police busted a gang that was allegedly involved in illegal organ trade.

Police said the donors and recipients both have been identified as Bangladeshis, who were taken to Jaipur for the surgeries in two private hospitals there. Officers associated with the probe said that both the donors and recipients were first brought to Gurugam Sector 39 and put up in guest houses arranged by the members of the racket. They were then taken to Jaipur for kidney surgeries, the officers said.

Arjun Dev, station house officer of Sadar police station, said when they reached the guest house, they found two donors and three recipients in different rooms. “Based on the information provided by the five, the mastermind of the gang has been identified as Mohammed Murtaza Ansari, of village Karge in Ranchi, Jharkhand,” the SHO said.

“Ansari had placed advertisements on social media platforms and had connections in Bangladesh who used to facilitate the deal between the donor and recipients. Ansari used to provide forged documents for medical visas, and passports to both sides,” he said.

The five people who were found in the guest house have not been arrested, Dev said.

“Ansari is absconding. Once he is arrested, we will get all the details regarding the modus operandi and operations of the gang,” he said.

The donors on the other hand told police that they were contacted by a middleman of the gang and they immediately agreed to sell the kidney as they were in dire need of money.

Dev said that the suspects had managed to pass off the donors as close relatives of the organ recipients, after making their fake profiles and ID cards. “We are verifying all the documents and will recover from the hospital as well to check the case they presented before the hospital. The gang members used to give advertisements for organ donation on social media platforms and that is how they got in touch with their donors and were running the operations in India,” he said.

Organ donation is only legal between living relatives, resulting in a chronic shortage of kidneys for transplant. However, the lucrative black market has emerged to address this gap, drawing in a constant flow of desperate buyers and equally impoverished donors, said police.

Dr. Pawan Chaudhary, deputy civil surgeon of Gurugram complained to police on Thursday and was part of the raiding team. He said the raid was conducted in Sector 39 for the purpose of verification of a secret complaint received that a nexus of organ transplant is run by Ansari.

“When the raiding team reached the guest house, the guest house owner was found present and he disclosed that five of the guests are currently staying who are from Bangladesh and he suspects that they are patients who are staying here and were brought by one middleman identified as Ansari. During questioning of the guests, all natives of Bangladesh, it was revealed that they are donors and recipients of the Kidney who were treated at a prominent hospital of Jaipur. The donor and the recipient are not in blood relation to each other. When donor and recipient were enquired about the no objection certificate or any permission from the authority, neither the donor nor the recipients, could produce any such document,” he said.