Kidney racket: Police to search homes, scan finances of arrested doctors

While complainant Mahesh Tanna claimed that Jaiswal paid Rs 50 lakh to the arrested agents, Jaiswal himself said he paid them Rs 21 lakh.

The Powai police said on Thursday that they will soon search the homes of the five Hiranandani hospital doctors arrested in the kidney transplant racket and check their bank statements to find out if they received any unaccounted money from agent Bhijendra Bisen, the main accused. The five doctors arrested are Hiranandani hospital CEO Dr Sujeet Chaterjee, medical director Dr Anurag Naik, nephrologist Dr Mukesh Shete, and urologists Dr Mukesh Shah and Dr Prakash Shetty.

A source in the police said, “We have learnt that (would-be recipient) Brijkishore Jaiswal may have paid in cash. But it has not been confirmed. We do not believe him. To ascertain the money trail, we will check if [the doctors] created bogus or unofficial bank accounts to park the money.”

While complainant Mahesh Tanna claimed that Jaiswal paid Rs 50 lakh to the arrested agents, Jaiswal himself said he paid them Rs 21 lakh.

“We have found four more suspicious kidney transplants, which we have referred to the Directorate of Health Services for scrutiny. We also want to find out if the doctors performed illegal transplants at other hospitals,” said a senior police official close to the investigation.

The official said the police will register a new first-information report (FIR) if they established that illegal surgeries were carried out at Hiranandani hospital.

So far, 14 people have been arrested in the case. Of these, the five doctors will be in police custody till August 13.

An officer clarified that while Jaiswal was among those arrested, the court did not remand him in custody and instead granted him bail.

Eight other accused were remanded in judicial custody. Of these, Jaiswal’s son Kishan, would-be donor Shobha Thakur (who pretended to be Jaiswal’s wife) and Nilesh Kamble, the hospital’s organ transplant co-ordinator, are out on bail.