THE recent case of Amit Kumar who fled India for Nepal on Jan. 24, 2008 when Indian police busted an underground kidney transplant network in Gurgaon, outside of New Delhi, has revealed the extent of the illegal kidney trade in India. When Nepalese police arrested him on Feb. 8, 2008 after he checked into a resort hotel in the remote Chitwan National Park at the foot of the Himalayan mountains, he was reportedly carrying a suitcase full of euros and American dollars, a bank draft for 936,000 euros and $125,000 in cash. Investigators from Indian Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) say Kumar served clients from Britain, the United States, Greece, Lebanon, Syria, Nepal, Canada and some Arabian Gulf countries. According to Gurgaon police, kidney donors were lured to Kumar's clinic with offerings of about Rs30,000 (about SR3,000) or the pretext of finding them employment. Those who resisted were drugged against their will and subsequently operated upon. Kumar (a.k.a. Amit Chaudhary, Amit Purshotam, Rajesh and Suresh Raut) was first arrested on charges of illegal human organ transplantation in Mumbai in 1994, but was released on bail. Twice afterwards, Kumar, his brother-in-law Jeevan Kumar, Upendra Aggarwal and Saraj Kumar, an anesthesiologist were arrested in Delhi and Andhra Pradesh and again got out on bail. A month before his arrest in Nepal, Delhi police arrested him but set him free on reportedly receiving a bribe of Rs2 million. Investigators have found reason to doubt whether Kumar possessed an MBBS degree or even a Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery (BAMS) as claimed. It appears that he learned about the delicate art of kidney surgeries from CDs. India's 1994 Transplantation of Human Organs Act (THOA) is reportedly observed mostly in the breach. Media investigations in recent months have revealed the extent of kidney trade in various Indian states. The “donors” were enticed from the poorest parts of the country. Frontline magazine reported that state authorization committees have approved almost all the hundreds of applications for donations by non-relatives for “reasons of affection” despite clear evidence that money had changed hands. __
