Police crack international kidney selling racket.
By Sreejith Vallikunnu
Police in India have cracked open an international kidney racket, which has connections with some hospitals in Sri Lanka. A money lender and an agent involved in the crime have been arrested.
It all started when the police found a daily wage worker, Santosh Gawli, who had travelled to Sri Lanka, on a tourist visa. The police questioned him and he said that he was compelled to go to Sri Lanka to sell off his kidney to repay a loan of Rs 20,000.
The incident happened in Vidarbha in the state of Maharashtra. Vidarbha is infamous for number of farmer suicides, where more than 2400 farmers have committed suicide so far this year.
A hospital in Nagpur, where the preliminary tests of the daily wager were conducted, is also under suspicion.
The police later arrested a moneylender, Anand Jadhav, and his agent Devendra Shirsat, on Tuesday. The police also went to Mumbai to gather information from a hotel, where Gawli stayed before he was flown to Colombo.
Gawli said to the police that Anand Jadhav and Devendra Shirsat had accompanied him to Sri Lanka. The investigation team has found out two more victims who were sent to Colombo by the same team.
Gawli told police he had borrowed Rs 20,000 as a loan from Jadhav and when he failed to pay third instalment, Jadhav threatened to kill him.
Gawli again failed to pay the installment and Jadhav’s goons started threatening him. One day later, Jadhav told him that he can get a waiver of his loan and earn Rs 4 lakh extra if he sells his kidney.
With no other way to repay the loan, Gawli agreed to Jadhav’s demand. This is the time when Shirsat entered and he co-ordinated his travel, including passport and visa.
The police suspect that Shirsat is the link between Jadhav and the Colombo hospital. They think that the group might have trapped many more people in the same way.
“So far we have just registered a case of cheating against two as per the complaint lodged with us. Prima facie it appears to be the work of an organised syndicate, but we can’t reveal anything since investigations are still in the premature stage,” Akola Police Superintendent, CK Meena, was quoted as saying by the Times of India.