Chennai doc held in kidney racket

Mumbai police cracked the case that had reached alarming proportions

The Mumbai crime branch has unearthed a global kidney racket involving a Chennai-based doctor and four associates. All were arrested on Monday.

Dr Palani Ravichandran, the alleged mastermind, was part of the Kidney Diseases and Institute of Organ Transplantation (KIOT), at St Thomas Hospital in Chennai.

He and his associates — Sandip alias Brijendra Bisen, Manoj Bopche, Mohd Hanif Mansuri and Shamim Ahmed Mohsin Qureshi — have been booked under the Human Organs Transplant Act and the Indian Penal Code. They were produced before metropolitan magistrate court and remanded in police custody till October 16.

According to the police, the operations were so well organised that it escaped their notice for a decade. “The recipients and donors were from all parts of India as well as Nepal, Malaysia, Myanmar, West Asia, Sri Lanka and other countries,” joint commissioner of police Rakesh Maria said.

While the recipient was charged Rs20 lakh for one kidney, the donor would be promised Rs3-4 lakh but ended up getting a paltry Rs25,000 once the transplant was done, the police said. Preliminary investigations have shown so far that, on an average, over 100 donors from each state had a transplant done annually.

The racket came to light when Jitu Borkar, a 27-year-old daily wage worker, complained to Unit 3 of the Mumbai Crime Branch that a person had promised him Rs4 lakh for a kidney donation. However, when this was done, he was just given Rs 25,000 and threatened with dire consequences if he asked for more.

The police got into the act and began their investigations and, gradually, the skeletons started tumbling out of the cupboard.

“There is at least one agent for each state whose job was to identify donors and recipients,” Maria said. The agent would then take a prospective donor to Palej town in Bharuch district of Gujarat where a person named Brijendra Bisen alias Sandip would carry out a comprehensive medical test.

“The idea was to ensure that the donor was fit enough to donate his kidney,” Maria said. If he was, Chennai was the next stop for the transplant.

The racketeers had hired a host of bungalows and apartments in Chennai to house donors. A donor from Maharashtra, for instance, would be kept in a bungalow exclusively meant for that state.

This gave an idea of the size of the racket and the stakes involved. Once the pre-surgery procedures were through, the donor would be admitted to Bharati Raja Hospital for the operation. “Dr Ravichandran along with an anaesthetic and a surgeon would then carry out the transplant,” Maria said.

According to the law, where the donor is not related to the recipient, he/she must be interviewed by an authorisation committee before getting the final nod. “This gang forged documents of the donor and certify him as the relative of the recipient,” Maria said.

The recipient was, of course, charged a mind-boggling Rs20 lakhs, of which Rs2 lakh apiece was given to the advocate preparing the false documents and the surgeons while the agent who tracked down the donor was given Rs1 lakh. The five-member gang pocketed the rest.

The police have also found that this network spread to Nepal and Myanmar, where there is an agent in place. They have zeroed in on 12 victims in Mumbai alone. “We are now recording their statements and will investigate the case further,” Maria said. The police have not ruled out the possibility of other high profile people involved in the racket.