Gurgaon kidney scandal
The multi-billion rupee Gurgaon kidney scandal came to light in January 2008 when police arrested several people for running a kidney transplant racket in Gurgaon, an industrial township near New Delhi, India. Kidneys from most of the victims, who were the poor hailing from the nearby western Uttar Pradesh, were transplanted into clients from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Greece. The police raid was prompted by complaints by the locals from Moradabad about illegal kidney sales. The man accused of the scandal, Amit Kumar, was arrested in Nepal on 7 February 2008 and has denied any hand in criminal activity.
On January 24, 2008, police teams from Haryana and Uttar Pradesh raided a residential building and a guest house owned by Amit Kumar.
According to the Gurgaon police, the scandal at a local clinic was going on for six to seven years. The donors were lured with offerings of about Rs. 30,000 for kidney removal. First, they were lured to the clinic on the pretext of job opportunities. They were instead asked for donating their kidneys for the fee and all those who resisted this were drugged against their will and subsequently operated upon.
The Haryana police, under whose jurisdiction the scandal happened, issued arrest warrants against Upendra Aggarwal, a general physician and an associate of Amit Kumar for his involvement in the scandal. However, at the time of the police raid, Kumar and his other accomplices escaped after the knowledge of possible arrests.
The raid helped rescue five people and shifted them to a Gurgaon hospital.
On January 25, 2008, the police detained a United States-based non-resident Indian couple and three Greek nationals, two among them being patients receiving the transplants.
The police revealed that Dr. Amit Kumar and his accomplices had performed 600 kidney transplants in the past decade. Additionally, at least two hospitals were involved in the after care of patients. Police, through the technology of fingerprinting, determined that Kumar went by many aliases and had been previously arrested at least four different times for illegal organ trade operations. It was further revealed that Kumar, his brother Jeevan Kumar, Upendra Aggarwal and Saraj Kumar, an anesthesiologist were previously arrested thrice on charges of illegal human organ transplantation in Delhi, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. They were, however, released on bail. On 7 January 2008 Kumar was arrested by Delhi Police but was released on a bribe of Rs. 20 lakhs. Jeevan Kumar was later arrested on 17 February 2008 in Delhi.
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