The Special Investigation Team (SIT), formed by Anand District Superintendent of Police Ashok Kumar Yadav to probe into the kidney racket of Pandoli village, has fanned across to Delhi and Mumbai to trace the timeline of the alleged organ extractions as well as “big fish” involved in the racket. 

Investigators have hinted that it could seek help from the Interpol to probe the link into the kidney extractions carried out in Sri Lanka, after following the due procedure of law. 

Investigators say that the documents have also confirmed that more than five persons travelled to Sri Lanka with help from “agents” to sell their kidneys. In what could escalate into an international racket, the Anand police are looking at seeking help from the Interpol to probe the Sri Lanka link. 

A senior investigating officer said, “More than five people from Pandoli have travelled to Sri Lanka for kidney extractions via Chennai, with help of agents. There are high chances that we will report this international link to the Centre and seek help from the Interpol after following the procedure of law. With help from Interpol, we will be able to probe this link.”

Petlad Deputy Superintendent of Police, M R Gupta, is heading the SIT. Its two teams are currently in Delhi and Mumbai to locate the network of the racket. A 27-year-old cattle trader from Pindoli, Aamir Malik, had alleged that another villager, Rafiq Vora, had “cheated” him into selling off his kidney to a Delhi hospital in February this year. 

A team of officers, along with one of the three arrested accused, are currently probing the sequence of events and the other touts involved in the transaction that earned Aamir Rs 2.3 lakh for one kidney. Another team of Anand investigators is in Mumbai to probe the link between a kidney donor, Poonam Solanki, from Pandoli in a 2001 case — the transplant of which, occurred in the Muljibhai Patel Urological Hospital (MPUH) in Nadiad. 

Senior officials added that the SIT will also question the recipients of the two the kidney transplants conducted at the Nadiad hospital regarding their link to their donors. “It will help us get to the touts who lure the naive villages with money.”

The MPUH authorities have clarified that the hospital had, on its own accord, requested the police to initiate a probe into another suspicious case in 2002. The recipient and donor of that case were acquitted by the Gujarat High Court in 2008.

Source: The Indian Express

-Agencies