INDIA:The Indian doctor accused of running a massive illegal kidney transplant racket was remanded yesterday for interrogation to the custody of federal investigators for a fortnight within hours of being deported from neighbouring Nepal.
The central bureau of investigation told the court that it needed time to unravel the international kidney transplant scam allegedly spearheaded by Amit Kumar who is believed not even to be a qualified medical doctor, but a practitioner of Ayurveda, an ancient Indian system of health care.
The subject of an Interpol alert, Mr Kumar was tracked down to a hotel in southern Nepal last Thursday after an international manhunt and deported to Delhi on Saturday night.
Dubbed "Doctor Horror" by the Indian press, Mr Kumar allegedly bribed and forced, even at gunpoint at least 500 poor and homeless people, migrant labourers and farm workers into giving up their kidneys at a sophisticated clinic in Gurgaon, a wealthy Delhi suburb.
The kidneys were then sold for large sums to wealthy Indians and foreigners for transplants.
Some of the kidney donors were allegedly paid up to $2,500 (€1,725) but the rich recipients were charged more than 10 times that amount for the organ, police said.
Authorities in Nepal said bundles of foreign and Indian currency worth more than $200,000 were recovered from Mr Kumar on his arrest.
Indian police said he was using Nepal as a transit point to flee to Canada, where he owns a home, after the long-running transplant racket was revealed last month following a victim's complaint.
Under India's transplantation of human organs act, kidney transplants are allowed only if the organ is donated by a blood relative or spouse, or if there is a swap agreement between two needy families. All transplants need government endorsement.
And though several similar rackets have been unearthed in India, police believe this multi-million dollar racket to be one of the biggest involving numerous doctors, three private hospitals, 10 pathology clinics and five diagnostic centres in at least seven states. So far 13 people including a doctor, hospital staff and several intermediaries had been arrested and more detentions are expected.