Kidney racket kingpin arrested
10 docs to be grilled by cops
New Delhi: The alleged kingpin of the kidney racket busted in Delhi’s Indraprastha Apollo Hospital was arrested in Kolkata on Tuesday. “We had sent police teams there and they have arrested him today,” said a senior police officer.
Alleged kingpin of the kidney racket, busted in the city’s Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, was arrested in Kolkata on Tuesday. “T. Rajukumar Rao, who has been evading arrest all these days, was hiding in Kolkata. We had sent police teams there and they have arrested him today ( Tuesday),” said a senior police officer.
Rao, aged around 40 years, who is believed to be associated with similar rackets in Nepal, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, will be brought to Delhi on transit remand. Rao was under police scanner for operating similar rackets in Jalandhar, Coimbatore and Hyderabad.
Three other persons, including two women, were arrested on Tuesday as 10 doctors will be questioned by the police in connection with the kidney racket. With these arrests, the total numbers of suspects arrested in the kidney racket case has gone up to nine.
The 10 doctors, who were members of the Apollo Hospital’s internal assessment committee for transplant surgeries, will be quizzed, the police said. The committee comprises of senior doctors working at the hospital, independent doctors and a government doctor. The three arrested have been identified as Umesh and Nilu, who are husband and wife residing in Kanpur, and Mamta alias Maumita, wife of one of the five main accused arrested earlier. All three of them are kidney donors associated with the racket.
During interrogation, Umesh and Nilu told the police that they had sold their kidneys for ` 4 lakh and ` 3 lakh respectively as they were in urgent need of money for their minor son’s leg surgery. They also told the police that when they came to know about the actual price for which their kidneys had been sold to the final recipient, they felt deceived, an official privy to the investigation said. The third accused, Maumita, is the one who actually led the police to the kidney racket.
On the day the racket was busted, Maumita was involved in a heated exchange with her husband, Devashish Moulik, and when the police intervened on receiving a call regarding the matter, it was stunned to hear Maumita accuse Moulik of cheating her of the money he received after her kidney was sold. During investigation, it came to light that Moulik had offered his kidney for sale first, but on being declared unfit he convinced his wife to sell her kidney instead.