Another Apollo doctor’s staff under lens in kidney scam

Delhi Police on Thursday detained for questioning the staff of a senior nephrologist of Indraprastha Apollo Hospital in connection with the kidney trade racket busted

Delhi Police on Thursday detained for questioning the staff of a senior nephrologist of Indraprastha Apollo Hospital in connection with the kidney trade racket busted last week.

T Rajkumar Rao, the alleged kingpin in the kidney trade racket being run at Apollo Hospital. (PTI)

Although the person was not arrested till Friday night, investigators claimed they had enough evidence to prove he was part of the racket allegedly being run at the hospital by kingpin T Rajkumar Rao.

Meanwhile, Rao told interrogators that besides targeting poor people who needed money, he had lured his sister-in-law and made her donate her kidney to one of his clients at a hospital in Coimbatore in 2012-13. Police are verifying his claims and have launched a search for Rao’s sister-in-law.

Read: Kidney racket kingpin owns two houses in Kolkata, gave lavish tips to barber

Eleven people — including two personal assistants of another senior nephrologist of Apollo hospital and four kidney donors — have been arrested in the kidney racket. The police verified at least five illegal kidney transplant surgeries conducted at Apollo hospital.

Officers probing the case said that the interrogation of Rao and his aides – Aseem Sikdar, Devashish Mauli, Satya Prakash alias Ashu, Aditya Singh and Shailesh Saxena – revealed five more kidney transplants conducted at Apollo hospital apart from two other surgeries that took place in private hospitals.

“The personal secretary of a senior nephrologist has been picked up,” confirmed a senior executive of the hospital administration.

The staff, an officer probing the case said, joined the racket after Rao offered him a commission of `50,000 for each successful transplant.

It has been learnt that he allegedly played a key role in swapping original files with forged ones in as many as three surgeries and he was paid around `1.5 lakh as commission by Rao.

Read: Kidney racket kingpin reaches Delhi, involved in trade since 2010