More arrests likely in kidney racket, teams despatched to other states

NEW DELHI: A day after Delhi Police blew the lid off a kidney trade racket at the Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, arresting two of its secretarial staff and three

NEW DELHI: A day after Delhi Police blew the lid off a kidney trade racket at the Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, arresting two of its secretarial staff and three touts, five teams have been sent to West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Kolkata to carry out raids.

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The police on Saturday served notice to Apollo, asking it to provide documents related to kidney transplants done in the last one year. Police suspect the involvement of two more staffers, including doctors, in the racket.

Apollo had on Friday said the hospital had been a victim of a well-orchestrated operation to cheat patients.

The cops visited the house of one recipient in Ghaziabad who was operated upon earlier this year but he was not found at home. He had reportedly taken help from this gang.

During questioning, Aditya Singh and Shailesh Saxena, aides to a senior nephrologist and three middle men arrested in the kidney racket, have named three more people stationed in Delhi and several others in different states, who are involved in the racket.

“We have identified more touts who are said to be involved in the racket. We have accessed their call detail records and put their phones on surveillance. We have contacted hospitals where they are said to be operating. We hope to trace them soon. More arrests are likely,” a senior police officer said.

The police sought technical assistance to study the electronic records that were seized on Thursday night. The documents and records have details of all the donors and recipients admitted to the hospital for kidney transplants. Till now the police have only identified five cases in which the kidney transplants were done based on forged documents. But they suspect more of such transplants were done in Apollo.

“The gang had been operating here for over six months so we suspect that many more cases will come to fore during the investigation. We are studying all documents,” a senior police officer said.

Senior doctors and other staff of Apollo hospital will soon be called in for questioning, sources said. “We will question the doctor’s on the panel of the hospital’s internal authorisation committee who give the clearances for the transplant after checking all documents,” a source said.

On Friday,police arrested five persons for allegedly luring needy people with money in exchange for their kidneys.