Kamal Ghorui
KANPUR: In a breakthrough in the investigation into the illegal kidney transplant racket, Kanpur police on Monday arrested a Class XII passout, Rohit Tewari, 34, for posing as a doctor and managing 30 surgeries.Tewari, who had a bounty of Rs 25,000 on his arrest, had been hopping between Goa, Kathmandu, Manali and Shimla to evade arrest since the racked was busted on Mar 31.Police said the syndicate was exposed after teams raided Ahuja Hospital in Maswanpur on a tip-off and found illegal kidney transplants being carried out at various city hospitals. The racket’s connections extended beyond Kanpur to Lucknow, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Nepal, with the accused using Telegram to lure poor people to sell kidneys for Rs 5-10 lakh and selling them to wealthy patients for Rs 60 lakh-1 crore.Police commissioner Raghubir Lal said Rohit revealed he was a Class XII passout and used to pose as a doctor. Police seized several photographs showing Rohit wearing a stethoscope and an apron. In some photographs, he was also seen performing surgeries inside an OT.After the Mar 31 raid, police raided Priya Hospital in Panki Kalyanpur, where a woman underwent a transplant. At Medlife Hospital in Awas Vikas Kalyanpur, a student from Begusarai in Bihar was found admitted. His kidney was donated to the woman admitted to Priya Hospital.The student revealed that Shivam Agrawal, an ambulance driver whom he met through Telegram, motivated him by talking about big celebrities. Shivam pointed out that even megastar Amitabh Bachchan is living with one kidney and is still active in films. He also mentioned spiritual leader Premanand Maharaj, whose kidneys are damaged. The student was convinced by Shivam’s arguments and agreed to sell one of his kidneys.During the process, the hospitals allegedly did not create a file for the kidney patient or prepare a Bed Head Ticket (BHT) for the donor. Post-surgery, treatment details were scribbled on plain paper with no nursing home or doctor stamps.The owner couple of Ahuja Hospital, Dr Surjit Ahuja and Preeti Ahuja, along with broker Shivam and nine others have been arrested and sent to jail so far. Interrogation of these individuals has revealed that Rohit, a resident of Delhi, was the mastermind of the illegal kidney transplant racket.Along with him, Dr Afzal of Meerut and OT technician Mudassar Ali were also named. Police had announced a reward of Rs 25,000 each on all three of them.Police stated many patients who underwent illegal surgeries or donated kidneys under this gang’s operation had died, primarily due to the gang being run by untrained and fake individuals like Rohit.
