Influential people, including politicians and businessmen, are on the radar in connection with an international kidney racket, officials said Sunday, days after a doctor was detained in Delhi.
Dr Dipak Shukla, CEO of a private hospital in Delhi, wasdetained in the national capital on Friday by a Special Investigation Team andbrought to Kanpur for questioning.
“Influential people like politicians and businessmenare on police radar. We are looking into the involvement of doctors, hospitalauthorities and prominent people to find their roles in the illegal kidney andliver transplantation,” Superintendent of Police (Crime), Kanpur, RajeshYadav said Sunday.
Police are also probing the possible involvement of thosewho find poor people, forge documents for them and take them to hospitalsposing as relatives, he added.
The middlemen who scout villages and small towns forpotential donors and sometimes lure them with false promises of employment inthe city are also under police surveillance, the SP said.
“Police probe confirmed that mostly the people who gavea kidney were poor and illiterate, and they got only a fraction of the moneywith the middleman pocketing the rest,” Yadav added.
Eight people, including the racket’s alleged kingpin, GauravMishra, have been arrested in the case till now.
The international kidney racket was busted on February 17.People involved in it used to remove kidneys of poor people illegally and sendthem for transplant into patients, including foreigners.
Police have arrested Gaurav Mishra of Lakhimpur Khiri, TRajkumar Rao of Kolkata, Shailesh Saxena of Badarpur in New Delhi, Saboor Ahmadof Kakori in Lucknow, Vicky Singh of Panki in Kanpur and Shamshad Ali of Chowkin Lucknow, Shyam Tiwari and Ramu Pandey in the case.Going by the investigations, almost all thedonors have accused Gaurav Mishra of trapping them.