New Delhi|HL
Delhi police asked 2 doctors of Apollo to join investigation in kidney racket .Two senior doctors of Apollo hospital have been sent a notice by Delhi Police to join investigations in the kidney racket after it was revealed that most of the transplants were conducted under their supervision. Sources said that the doctors have been asked to appear by Tuesday.
DCP (southeast) Mandeep Singh Randhawa confirmed the move, but refused to divulge details. However, sources said that interrogation of the prime accused, R Raj Kumar, and his associate Aseem Sikdar pointed towards the role of senior nephrologists Ashok Sarin and DK Aggarwal in the multi-crore kidney racket.
Sarin is suspected to be aware of the proceedings of the first five cases, sources said. His personal secretaries, Aditya Singh and Sailesh Saxena, who have been arrested, also indicated towards Sarin’s role in conducting some of the operations.
Police said that both the doctors were a part of Apollo hospital’s medical authorisation committee that had approved the transplants. The committee comprises senior doctors who interview donors and recipients before deciding on transplants. At least one of the three committee members to be called in for questioning is a doctor, police said.
Sources in Apollo hospital said that external members were also part of the authorisation committee. “Even government representatives are involved in the case of unrelated donors,” a source said. At least one member of the committee is suspected to be part of the racket. Over 300 “donors” from UP, Bihar and Bengal are believed to have been conned since January.
Singh and Saxena told the cops that once they convinced a “donor”, they told the recipient to pose as a relative. They further said that transplants in case of related donors were approved by the hospital committee and were not subject to external scrutiny.
While Singh and Saxena coached the “donors”, the touts – Aseem Sikdar, Satya Prakash and Devashish Moulik – prepared forged identities of the donors and recipients for verification by the committee.
Indicating the possibility of a larger nexus, senior police officers said Sikdar’s associate Rajkumar Rao, who was earlier involved in running similar rackets in Coimbatore and Jalandhar, might be behind it. Raids are being conducted in Kolkata, Hyderabad and Delhi to nab Rao. Police are also looking for a forger from Kolkata who helped create the fake documents
