The racket in illegal sale of kidneys raised its head again on Sunday, when the Panjagutta police booked a case against a Gandhi hospital nephrologist, Dr Ramesh Chada, and two of his assistants, and arrested two brokers following a sting operation. Police said that the accused were attracting poor villagers, harvesting kidneys from them and performing transplantation illegally at the Indu Superspecialty Clinic, Dr Chada’s outfit, at Karkhana in the city.
Police arrested Rajendra Prasad alias Rajendra Kumar, a medical insurance agent of Khairatabad, and Venkata Srinivas, a native of Addanki and employee of SVR Travels at Lakdikapul on the charges of cheating and violation of the AP Human Organ Transplantation Act. Dr Chada’s two assistants, P.S. Praveen and Prasanth, were named in the FIR. The alleged racket was unearthed in a sting operation carried by the West Zone DCP special team, Panjagutta police and a TV channel.
Panjagutta sub-inspector K. Ravi Kumar told this newspaper that the complainant, one Yadagiri of Medak district, had approached the police on May 3. “He said he was offered Rs 5 lakh after he offered his kidney to an unrelated donor. According to the deal, he was to be paid an advance of Rs 1 lakh before the operation, and the remaining amount after the transplant surgery,” Mr Kumar. “The kidney transplant surgeries were going on for the five to six months. We are interrogating the brokers,” the police official said.