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Alleged kidney racket mastermind arrested in Assam
Police in Assam’s Dibrugarh district have arrested an alleged mastermind in a kidney transplant racket that used to target needy tea garden workers, officials said on Monday
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Police in Assam’s Dibrugarh district have arrested an alleged mastermind in a kidney transplant racket that used to target needy tea garden workers, officials said on Monday.
Gautam Sonowal alias Girin Sonowal (50) was arrested on Sunday night from Tengakhat area of the district where he was hiding in an acquaintance’s house. He was produced in court on Monday and remanded to four days of police custody.
Another accused, Samar Pal, an associate of Sonowal, had been arrested last week when he was about to leave for Kolkata with three prospective kidney ‘donors’. He is at present in judicial custody.
“We had registered a case in Lahowal police station in July this year following a complaint from a person who had sold one of his kidneys in April,” said Bitul Chetia, additional superintendent of police, Dibrugarh.
The complainant, Ramu Karmakar, had mentioned that Sonowal had convinced him to sell his kidney for a sum of ₹3.5 lakhs, which was to be transplanted to a doctor.
Investigations revealed that Sonowal had received ₹13 lakhs from the doctor but paid only a fraction of it to Karmakar.
Buying and selling of kidneys and other human organs is prohibited in India by the Transplantation of Human Organs Act.
However, they can be transplanted from donors (who are close relatives of the patient or non-related persons after proper authorization by the government) and from brain-dead patients.
Sometimes this provision in the law is used by criminals to lure poor and needy persons to ‘donate’ their kidneys with the promise of large sums of money.
“Sonowal told us that he had donated one of his kidneys to a relative around five years ago in Kolkata. During that trip he came in contact with the illegal kidney transplant racket and started luring poor tea garden workers to sell their kidneys to those in need,” said Chetia.
“He has confessed to having taken three people in the past two years to Kolkata to sell their kidneys. Sonowal used to take large sums from the kidney recipients but paid only a part of it to the so-called donors,” he added.
The kidney racket in Dibrugarh was the second one that came to light in July this year. Forced by poverty and health complications, nearly a dozen villagers in central Assam’s Morigaon district sold their kidneys to another organised gang of criminals in recent years.
The racket came to light when Lilimai Bodo, the alleged mastermind, was nabbed by the villagers in July when she visited them looking for more ‘donors’. Bodo’s son and another person, both involved in the racket, were also arrested.
