5 Bangladesh nationals arrested in Gurugram for illegal kidney transplants

The Gurugram police on Saturday arrested five people in Sector 39 for allegedly trafficking kidneys for three illegal transplants that were performed in Jaipur last month, police officers said on Sunday.

According to the police, the suspects are Bangladeshi nationals who came to India for a kidney transplant. They were identified as kidney recipients Kobir MD Ahasanul, 31, Nurul Islam, 56, and Mahmud Syed Akb, 25, and donors Shamim Mehndi Hasan, 34, and Hossain MD Azad, 30, said investigators.

Another suspect who donated a kidney fled to Bangladesh a few days before the other suspects were arrested, said officers. Arjun Dev, station house officer of the Sadar police station, said that the donors were paid ₹2 lakh each for the kidney transplant.

Through a social media advertisement last year, they got in touch with a man named Mohammed Murtaza Ansari, originally from Jharkhand, who offered to arrange kidney transplants, said police officers.

"Ansari's gang members used to charge ₹10 lakh to arrange a kidney after the reports matched and doctors confirmed that a transplant could take place. Post-transplant, the gang used to make the recipient and the donor stay in a guest house in Gurugram. The arrested suspects were staying in the guest house in Gurugram after undergoing kidney transplant surgeries," said SHO Dev.

Dev said that Ansari had managed to pass off the donors as close relatives of the organ recipients, after making their fake profiles and ID cards. Ansari is still at large, said investigators. The total number of illegal kidney transplants in which Ansari is involved is yet to be determined, but the number could run in the hundreds, said investigators.

On April 4, the police conducted a raid at a guest house in Sector 39 and arrested a Bangladeshi national who had undergone a kidney removal procedure at a hospital in Jaipur under suspicious financial arrangements, said investigators.

The suspects were sent to 14 days of judicial custody after being produced before a court on Saturday.