Dehradun: In a joint operation, an inter-state kidney racket — believed to have international links — was busted by Haridwar and Dehradun police on Monday.The racket in which kidneys were being illegally removed from persons belonging to different states of the country and transplanted on patients including foreigners, was operating from a private hospital named Gangotri Charitable Hospital. The hospital is a branch of the Uttaranchal Dental and Medical Research Institute located in Doiwala on the outskirts of Dehradun.Haridwar police officials said that they came to know of the racket when they intercepted a vehicle bearing registration number UA08 TA 5119 with a few persons inside it near the Saptarishi police post in Haridwar late night on Sunday.“Seeing the police at checkpoint, one person escaped from the spot. After questioning them, we found out that the four persons inside the vehicle were kidney donors and they told that they were coming from Gangotri Charitable Hospital in Doiwala area, after which we informed Dehradun police about it. The middleman was taking them to Delhi,” said Krishna Kumar, senior superintendent of police (SSP) Haridwar.The kidney donors were identified as Sheikh Taj Ali, Sushma Banerjee and Krishna Das, all residents of West Bengal, while the fourth donor Bhav Ji Bhai was from Kheda district of Gujarat. The middleman Javed Khan who escaped after being intercepted by police was later arrested by the police in the Doiwala area.Elaborating on the racket, Nivedita Kukreti, SSP Dehradun, said, “During questioning, Krishna Das and Sheikh Taj Ali told police that their kidneys were removed at Gangotri Charitable Hospital while the doctors could not remove the kidneys of other two donors as they allegedly created uproar in the hospital after they were not given the promised money by the middleman.”The donors said that Javed Khan called them from their respective states with a promise of paying Rs 3 lakh each. “After other two donors— Sushma Banerjee and Bhav Ji Bhai—started creating chaos, the hospital staff advised Javed Khan to take them away. While they were being taken to Delhi, they were caught,” Kukreti said. She added that after the police raided the hospital premises, they found there was “no renal department there, which means they were illegally removing kidneys.”Police also recovered air tickets of Oman from the hospital, pointing at a suspected international link to the whole racket. “Prima facie, it looks that about four persons from an Arab country came to the hospital last month and one of them had undergone kidney transplant here. Investigation is on to unearth more details about the racket’s international linkages,” Kukreti said.Javed Khan has been booked under section 370 (buying or disposing of any person as a slave), 343 (wrongful confinement ) and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code and relevant sections of Transplant of Human Organs Act (THOA).According to police officials, the names of two doctors, identified as Amit Sharma and Akshay Kumar, and another person named Rajiv Chaudhary also surfaced during interrogation and efforts are on to nab them. Meanwhile, a three-member committee constituted by the health department inspected the Gangotri Charitable Trust on Monday and found that the hospital did not have requisite registration or licenses.(with inputs from Shivani Azad)

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