Delhi hospitals raided for kidney scam clues

New Delhi: The Moradabad police swooped down on two top Delhi hospitals and a pathological lab on Wednesday in connection with the Gurgaon kidney racket and searched their premises for any linkages with the multi-crore-rupee organ trade racket.

Moradabad Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Manjil Saini said that a police team raided Batra Hospital, Apollo Hospital and Focus Diagnosis for evidence of connection with the organ racket. The raids followed the questioning of one of the key accused, Dr Upendra.

Some other pathological labs, hospitals and private clinics, too, are under scanner, the ASP said. Dr Upendra, one of the accused in the case, was accompanying the police team during the raids.

It was a Moradabad Police team, led by Saini, which had blown the lid off the racket on January 24 after it raided two houses in Palam Vihar and Gurgaon on the basis of information provided by one of the 'victims' of the kidney racket.

The police have also cast the net wide after it was found that four doctors arrested in 1995 in connection with the Jaipur kidney racket were also involved in this scandal.

The police claim Dr Upendra has named the four doctors - namely Dr Seema, Dr Fahia, Dr Upalia, Dr Suresh Singh - who allegedly had a long association with Dr Amit Kumar, the kingpin of the racket. "All of them are involved in the scam," the police say.

The police say Dr Upendra has accepted during interrogation that he and his wife have more than 3-dozen bank accounts and a number of properties in Jaipur, Mumbai, Gurgaon and Sohna.

The police have also arrested a foreign national, named Linda, from South Delhi, who is said to be a close associate of Dr Amit. She is said to be a surgeon and further details about this arrest are still awaited.

According to reports from Canada, the police there have begun investigating whether prime accused Amit is in that country. The Interpol Ottawa is in touch with Interpol New Delhi on the case.

Wife, driver of accused arrested

Earlier, Dr Upendra was arrested by the Gurgaon Police along with Pooja, wife of Dr Jeevan Kumar and Umesh, driver of Dr Amit Kumar under charges of criminal conspiracy.

PAGE_BREAK

"On January 24 when the raid was conducted, Pooja took Dr Jeevan near Safdarjung in her car and dropped him," Manjit Singh Ahlawat, Joint Commissioner Crime, said while justifying the decision to arrest them.

Sources in Gurgoan Police have told CNN-IBN that Dr Amit and Dr Jeevan used the same method to source and service clients from abroad as they did in India.

Dr Amit travelled to various countries and built a network of touts and doctors across nephrology departments in various hospitals and projected himself as someone who could get a safe kidney transplant done.

"Greek nationals and NRIs are being questioned about this and they have been called again today and we are interrogating them," Ahlawat added.

Pooja and Umesh have been sent to police custody till February 6. Police in Moradabad say that Dr Upendra has revealed that there are over 100 bank accounts in his and his wife's name.

He also said that a team of doctors from Gohana and Palwal in Haryana, and Jaipur used to travel to Moradabad and Gurgaon to conduct surgeries.

(For updates you can share with your friends, follow IBNLive on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest)