On the face of it, the recently busted kidney racket appears to have been operated from Saroornagar, on eastern part of State capital Hyderabad, but it has connections with places like Chennai, Bengaluru, Vizag – where some of its key operatives are based.
Investigators are also suspecting that a kingpin of the racket is remotely connected to Sri Lanka going by the analysis of his call data record. Already, the Saroornagar police of Rachakonda had picked up two persons connected to the crime. Their confession is likely to help the police to connect the dots and identify the main persons.
Rachakdona sleuths stumbled upon evidence suggesting that the ‘racket was not confined to just two kidney transplantations’ for which surgeries were performed at Alaknanda hospital.
“At least 10 kidney transplantations had taken place as part of this racket keeping medical and health officials in dark and lakhs of rupees changing hands,” a police officer said on condition of anonymity.
Each of the six special teams are working on different leads. They did not rule out the possibility of the same gang having been involved in other illegal kidney transplantations in other hospitals in the city. “Unless we catch the kingpin, we would not be able to explain how it started, to what extent its tentacles spread out,” the officer said.
The racket was operated in a ‘cut-off’ mode with each member of the gang being assigned specific task. The gang engaged lab technicians, doctors assisting the super specialists who transplanted the kidneys, nursing staff and other para medical team members. Each of them had no information or details of the other members.
The lab technicians were asked to collect samples of blood and urine of the donors and receivers. Beyond this point, they had no information as to who was the doctor performing the transplantation. They have no other information like if any mediator was involved. Police are probing reports that similar surgeries were conducted at another hospital which is shut now.
Published – January 24, 2025 12:27 am IST