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Kidney racket: Lack of cooperation from health department, alleges CID
This racket came to light in December 2015 when two victims filed a case complaining that they were duped by agents
The ongoing probe by the Maharashtra Criminal Investigation Department (CID) into the 2015 Akola kidney racket case seems to have hit a dead end with the state agency alleging a lack of cooperation from the health department.
This racket came to light in December 2015 when two victims — labourers Shantabai Kharat and Santosh Gawli— filed a case complaining that they were duped by “agents” who promised to pay them rupees five lakh for a kidney.
According to first information reports filed in the Akola police station on December 2 and 3, 2015, Gawli and some others were flown to a hospital in Sri Lanka where their kidneys were removed. The case was transferred from the Akola crime branch to the CID on February 18, 2016.
In January-end, Sunil Ramanand, special inspector general of police (Crime, East) CID, said that the CID had sought the cooperation of the health department to establish the role of doctors and hospitals in the racket. However, with no information forthcoming, the investigations came to a halt, he said.
“We wanted the state health department to explain to us the roles of the doctors in this case and whether they could also be booked. But even after constant reminders there has, so far, been no reply,” Ramanand said.
On December 18, Neeva Jain, superintendent of police, CID, sent a reminder to the director, Maharashtra public health department, asking whether the “hospitals, pathological laboratories and doctors who prescribed the lab investigations and carried out the procedures should be charged in the case or not”.
The health department replied that while they can be charged, the matter is under discussion and cannot be proceeded upon without permission from the state advisory committee. The 16-member committee comprises public health experts and takes critical decisions on important issues such as organ transplant, swine flu outbreak among others. It is headed by the principal secretary, health department.
The state health department, on its part, has rejected the charge of the CID that it has been ignoring the repeated reminders from the CID.
Dr Anup Kumar Yadav, state health director and Mission Director of National Health Mission, Maharashtra, said, “There are some new revelations in the case which we have been informed of by our team. The police needs to send us the report about the doctors or hospitals who have been involved in the illegal kidney transplant, so that we as the state public health department can take further action against those found accused. The action will be no less than shutting down the hospital and cancelling the registration of both, the doctor and the hospital.”
Dr Sanjeev Kamble, former director, state health services, who retired on December 31, 2018, said, “Before I left, I sent a letter to the police [asking them] to send us a detailed report about the Akola kidney racket because often, if a doctor is involved and knows about the charges he will face, he tries to flee or applies for bail and seeks full legal protection. This leads to pending cases and the action also gets delayed. Hence, we want the police to speed up the process.”
Dr Satish Pawar, additional director, National Health Mission (NHM) and former director of the Maharashtra health department, also refuted the charge that health officials were not cooperating with the CID.
“We expected them to solve the case, make arrests and nab the people involved just as the Mumbai police did with the Hiranandani kidney racket (Mumbai) which came to light in 2016. However, in the Akola case, there has been no progress and there are only certain communications that are going back and forth between the health department and the CID. It is an extremely sensitive case as international waters are involved and we expected more from the CID, but in vain,” Pawar said.
The racket was first investigated by the local crime branch which had arrested two alleged agents, Vinod Pawar and Devendra Shirsat.
The duo, in turn, named the alleged kingpin, Shivaji Koli, who was nabbed in early 2016 and who confessed to the crime during interrogation, according to investigators. Koli allegedly named three hospitals in Pune, claiming the involvement of these hospitals, in the racket.
“Koli and his agents confessed to targeting poor labourers and deliberately lending them ‘enough’ money so that they failed to repay the amount,” said Dr Pawar.
According to the police, a total of five people — Shivaji Koli, Vinod Pawar, Devendra Shirsat, Mahendra Tayade and Pramod Rao — were arrested in connection with the kidney racket. All were booked under the Human Organ Transplant Act, 2014, a CID official said.
Three years after the case first broke out, the Akola crime branch now says they are not sure whether the accused are still in custody. Vikrant Desmukh, additional superintendent of police from Akola, said, “The accused must be in the magisterial custody. The case is old and the investigating officer in this case has been transferred.”
