Kidney Scam: Links b/w gang's kingpin

Moradabad, Feb 2: The country's biggest kidney scam took a new turn today after Doctor Upendra, who was recently arrested in the scam, disclosed the kingpin of the racket Dr Amit had close relations with leaders of prominent political parties.

''Upendra revealed that Dr Amit had close relations with an MP and former deputy Chief Minister and protection of several big political leaders in Haryana. The ex-deputy CM had also inaugurated Amit's hospital at Gurgaon,'' SSP Prem Prakash told reporters. According to Upendra, Amit's original name is Santosh Raut. In 1994, he used to practice in Mumbai, when police nabbed him in in Kidney transplant case. His first marriage ended in divorce.

Later, he married Poonam.'' The SSP said Amit used to invest movey from the illicit trade in several Bollywood films. His brother Jeevan had also acted in one of these films. His links with the underworld is being investigated by the Mumbai Police.

Now with Haryana police arresting Amit's close confidant Bulbul Kataria, some more sensational facts would come to light in the country's biggest Kidney scam.

Upendra had yesterday confessed that the gand was active in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar and Nepal. The nabbed added the kidneys were sold at Rs 12 lakh to the needy foreigners. On the basis of information provided by the arrested, another doctor V K Agarwal was nailed down from Rajasthan on Thursday.

Dr Agarwal, an anaesthetist, used to charge Rs 20,000 per kidney transplant. As many as 10 doctors are under scanner in the high-profile scam. Prime accused Dr Amit, is still at large. Efforts were underway to nab the absconding through Interpol.

However, Dr Amit's two Nepali servants and driver have been arrested. ''As Dr Upendra is a heart patient, precautions are being made during his interrogation,'' SSP Prem Prakash had said. The medico had revealed the name of six medicos and efforts were being made to trace them.

Dr Upendra had also confessed that Dr Amit operated upon some persons to take out their kidney in Gungtur district of Andhra Pradesh.

Dr Amit was running the illicit trade of Kidney removal and transplantation at Gurgaon's Palam Vihar area. He also owned a hospital in Noida in association with Dr Veerendra Vikram Singh.

Efforts are also on to nab him. The network of the kidney transplant racket, which was busted recently by Moradabad Police, was also spread over as many as 48 countries.

This fact came to light in the police investigations so far. The SSP had said these countries included USA, Russia, Canada and Greece.

Mr Prakash said the kingpin of the racket, Dr Amit Kumar, made use of his Canadian wife's contact in foreign countries to spread his network of illegal kidney transplants.

Several Delhi hospitals, dialysis centres and medical institutes were also under scanner for their possible complicity in the case.

Meanwhile, the police had applied for remand of the four accused in the case. Sources said the Gurgaon Police, on the leads provided by Moradabad Police, were already investigating the properties owned by Dr Kumar.

UNI