Derbassi organ transplant racket: Anomalies found in at least a dozen transplants performed in 2 years
A member of the special investigation team (SIT), constituted to probe the organ transplant racket at Indus International Hospital in Derabassi, has revealed that the hospital’s transplant coordinator Abhishek, who is also the prime accused in the case, had facilitated all these surgeries.
The Indus International Hospital in Derabassi, which is embroiled in the organ transplant racket, had performed 30 transplant surgeries in merely two years and anomalies have been found in at least a dozen of these, probe has revealed.
A member of the special investigation team (SIT), constituted to probe the racket, has revealed that the hospital’s transplant coordinator Abhishek, who is also the prime accused in the case, had facilitated all these surgeries.
While 11 transplant surgeries were conducted in 2021, 17 were conducted in 2022. The hospital performed seven transplant operations till March 7 this year.
When contacted, Derabassi assistant superintendent of police (ASP) Darpan Ahluwalia, who is also a part of the three-member SIT, said, “Some disparities have been found in the documents of these surgeries. We cannot share more details at this point as the matter is under investigation.”
Meanwhile, hospital director Dr SS Bedi said the hospital authorities are themselves victims as they have been duped by both donors and recipients. He added that to add to it all, the other employees were also grilled by the police.
Dr Bedi said the recipient and the donor, who had posed as father and son, gave a wrong statement before the panel and it was video recorded.
Main accused’s lavish lifestyle raised suspicion
Dr Bedi admitted that Abhishek had been enjoying a lavish lifestyle, which raised suspicion. “He would wear branded clothes, drive expensive cars and live in a premium apartment. He was also questioned by hospital authorities. In reply, Abhishek stated that he had made a fortune while dealing in real estate,” revealed Dr Bedi.
3 key conspirators still on run
Mohali senior superintendent of police Sandeep Garg said a hunt is on to nab three persons - Hassan, Anmol and Himanshu- the other key conspirators of the racket.
“We are hoping that their arrest will provide further leads to the police in understanding the network and if they were operating in other states,” said Garg.
So far, it has come to light that the accused were using social media and targeting donors and recipients for kidney transplant in lieu of money.
Donor Kapil Kumar of Sirsa, had blown the lid off the racket, after he wasn’t paid ₹10 lakh in lieu of his kidney.
Kapil said the accused had got in touch with him over Facebook on the pretext of blood donation and eventually persuaded him to donate his kidney to a man after posing as his son. The gang had even forged test reports, Aadhar card, voter card and other details to further the end.
The gang allegedly used to collect data of patients from clinics of nephrologists to target them. While most of the kidney recipients were from the tricity, Haryana and Punjab, there were some donors were from Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra too, as per cops.
The accused were maintaining a huge pool of donors and once a matching recipient was found, the accused, including Abhishek, would forge documents to present the donor as a blood relative.
The case has been registered under Sections 419 (cheating by personation), 465 (forgery), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged 1[document or electronic record]) and 120 (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code, and Sections 19 and 20 of the Transplantation of Human Organ Act (THOA), was registered on March 18. The accused were arrested on March 19 and sent to judicial custody. Both Abhishek and his aide Raj Narayan were nabbed in the case.
