Organ donations: India
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Illegal organ donations
2008:Ayurvedic Dr Amit Kumar
The Times of India, Jun 04 2016
Rajshekhar Jha The kidney racket busted by Delhi Police recalls the unearthing of a similar racket in 2008. The earlier gang was headed by an ayurvedic practitioner, Dr Amit Kumar, and involved the transplants of a staggering 600 kidneys across the country.
The regulatory framework under which Kumar was found guilty and sentenced to seven years' of rigorous imprisonment and fined Rs 60 lakh by a CBI court in 2013 now appears to have so many lacunae as to allow another racket of similar magnitude. The latest case only highlights the need for a fresh evaluation of the norms to curb illegal organ donation. For over a decade, Kumar and his associates in the Rs 100crore business dodged the police with ease, with bribes being their main weapon. Even minutes before his arrest from a wildlife resort close to the India-Nepal border in 2008, Kumar had made an abortive bid to bribe a Nepalese cop. Arrested four times including by Delhi Police, Kumar had become the most wanted man for offences of this sort Jaipur, Guntur, Hyderabad and Mumbai.
While Kumar claimed to be a saviour of those battling kidney disease, including foreigners and NRIs from Greece, Canada, Saudi Arabia, UAE and the US, the so-called donors narrated a tale of being picked up by the doctor's henchmen and being confined to a secret location guarded by gun-toting men. The gang had a car converted into a mini lab where the victims were first brought and their blood samples matched with the clients' before any negotiations on money began.
Kumar used to insert advertisements in international medical journals offering overseas clients a full medical tou rism package that included return airfares, airport transfers, accommodation and cost of surgery . Like in the current case, the members aiding and abetting Kumar stayed in hotels and an upscale guesthouse in DLF-I in Gurgaon to impress wealthy clients.
The 2008 scam was exposed when a deal fell through and the potential donor, a UP labourer, filed a complaint of harassment against Dr Upendra, an aide of Kumar. This time it was a quarrel between a husbandwife duo that alerted the police.
While Delhi Police has been able to unearth a few cases till now, sources said this was only the tip of the iceberg. Once the mastermind and the big fish are in the net, bigger revelations are likely to follow.
