While Amit Kumar, the alleged kingpin in the kidney racket, may have been arrested, it now appears that he wasn’t the only one in the business.
MORADABAD/MEERUT: While Amit Kumar, the alleged kingpin in the kidney racket, may have been arrested, it now appears that he wasn’t the only one in the business. There appears to have been a whole syndicate operating in the western UP belt.
DNA was able to track down two persons in Meerut who had had their kidneys illegally purchased by a gang headed by a ringleader other than Amit Kumar.
The duo claimed their kidneys were taken in May 2006 and October 2005.
DNA located Mahesh, 35 and Puran, 29, in Meerut following a trail of people living in the worst conditions in the city.
While Mahesh claimed his kidney was sold off in May, 2006, Puran sold one of his kidneys less than a year earlier in October, 2005.
Mahesh is a former rickshaw-puller who left the tiring work soon after he sold off a kidney. Currently he does nothing. DNA traced him following leads from beggars and rickshaw-pullers around the Ghantaghar area of Meerut town.
“I used the money to pay off some debt but mostly the money got used up here and there,” he said. Mahesh demanded Rs 500 for speaking to this reporter. The money was paid to him in the larger public interest of following the kidney scam trail.
Puran, who sold off his organ a year earlier, had broached the sale through Mahesh. A man called Sanjay had approached him to sell his kidney. After the surgery, which was conducted in a local Meerut nursing home whose name, he claimed, he could not recollect, Sanjay offered him money if he got other candidates.
According to Mahesh and Puran, touts regularly scout for possible candidates and use them to hunt for more after the surgery is done. Incidentally, the two claimed that Amit Kumar could not have been behind the gang that stole their kidneys Amit Kumar’s tout, someone called Saeed, had approached them earlier but had backed off when he learnt that the two were Sanjay’s clients.
“Sanjay promised me Rs 10,000 but paid less than half the amount when I approached him with Mahesh,” he told DNA. Mahesh was operated upon in a private nursing home in Ghaziabad.
Saeed is currently on the run following the exposure on Amit Kumar. The Moradabad police suspect him of trading in at least 300 kidneys over a five-year period. Mahesh and Puran claimed that many more touts like Sanjay and Saeed operate in and around Meerut.
Both Puran and Mahesh hail from the Khekhra area of western Uttar Pradesh and displayed scars on their lower abdomen. While Mahesh reported a steady decline in his health and a serious lack of energy, Puran was evasive when asked about his health.
Senior officials investigating the case informed DNA that the Ghantaghar area in Meerut was full of people whose kidneys had been removed. “There must be 400 people in the area who gave their kidneys in the last five years. We did round up 35-40 people whose kidneys had been stolen but let them off because they were not related to the present case. We are focusing on the three complainants who came initially,” said senior superintendent of police (SSP) Moradabad Prem Prakash.
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