Kidney scam kingpin Dr Amit Kumar was brought here on Saturday after he was handed over to the CBI by Nepalese authorities in Kathmandu.
NEW DELHI/KATHMANDU: The mastermind of an international kidney racket, Amit Kumar, was flown to Delhi from Kathmandu on Saturday evening, accompanied by a team of CBI officials. This put at rest speculation that his deportation from Nepal may be delayed.
The Nepal police had nabbed Kumar at a jungle resort where he had been hiding ever since the Moradabad police raided his illegal hospital in Gurgaon on January 24. Kumar and his brother had escaped from the police raid and managed to get out of the country.
CBI spokesman G Mohanty said that the speedy deportation was possible due to the agency’s strong ties with Nepalese authorities. Nepal decided to hand Amit Kumar over to the CBI team, revising an earlier decision to try him in Nepal for violating local laws. Nepal Police had earlier said Amit Kumar would be produced in a Nepalese court on Sunday and charged with violating the Foreign Currency Regulation Act.
However, a change of mind was apparent when Nepal’s peace and reconstruction minister Ram Chandra Poudel said: “Since he is an Indian citizen and did not commit any crime in Nepal, we could deport him to India.”
A cabinet meeting had been called to discuss the issue on Sunday, but Indian authorities persuaded Nepal to hand over Amit Kumar before that.
The 43-year-old Ayurvedic doctor along with four CBI officials then flew back from Kathmandu on Air India flight IC 814 which arrived at the Indira Gandhi International Airport at about 6.50 p.m.
Airport sources said that the CBI team and Kumar were the first to deplane and go through customs and immigration, while the other passengers remained in the aircraft. Kumar was taken to CBI headquarters.
“He will be questioned in detail tonight and tomorrow he will be produced in court. He will also undergo a medical check-up,” said a senior CBI official involved in the probe.
The CBI has asked the police officers of Moradabad and Gurgaon to join the investigation.”The police officers have been called because they would know all the angles of investigations and also the evidences they have gathered during investigation,” said the CBI officer. The Mumbai unit of the CBI too has been asked to chip in with details of Kumar’s racket in Mumbai.
Amit Kumar and his associates allegedly obtained kidneys illegally, often through force, from poor people and then transplanted them to needy patients who could pay their exorbitant charges.
The ring, which served clients from Britain, the US, Greece, Lebanon, Canada, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, was busted on January 24 in Gurgaon.
On Thursday, the police had seized a bank draft of Rs 936,000, as well as EUR 145,000 and USD 18,900 in cash from Amit Kumar when he was arrested from Hotel Wildlife Camp located at Chitwan in southern Nepal, 60 km from the Indian border.
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