Organ transplant racket busted, 3 gang members arrested in Assam's Nagaon

Nagaon, Nov 4 (PTI) An organ transplant racket was busted in Nagaon district of Assam, and three traffickers were apprehended, an official said on Tuesday.

Nagaon Senior Superintendent of Police Swapnanil Deka said an operation carried out over the last few days unearthed the entire web of the organ transplant racket, which has been in operation for several years in the area.

As per reports, after holding an awareness meeting against drugs and illegal liquor under the aegis of 'Village Women's Defence Force' recently at the village, the illegal trade of kidney selling came to light.

"Once we came to know about it, Nagaon Police started a thorough investigation. We arrested three suspected gang members, identified as Dharani Das alias Bogamula, Mahendra Das and Deep Das today," the SP said.

During police interrogation, it was revealed that one Hazarika from Baihata Chariali of Kamrup district and another Daulagapu from Guwahati are also involved with them in this trade.

The Huz-Kaibarta village Headman Dipu Das told reporters that the illegal practices have been going on in the area for the last several years. The village is adjacent to Nagaon town.

"The villagers have been running an illegal liquor trade for livelihood. People are not healthy and also not sound financially due to consumption of liquor regularly. To make money, they gradually stepped into the kidney selling market to manage their daily bread and butter," he added.

Despite sharing information regarding the said illegal kidney trade to local police in the early days by female residents, local police failed to arrest any member of the racket, Das claimed.

"We have many such families in the village where three members of a five-member unit have already sold their kidneys. We are gradually having a disabled society, which has been created artificially due to extreme poverty," he added.

An official said the kidney donors are being smuggled from the village through a brokerage cycle. The people of the village, who are financially crippled, are forced to sell their valuable kidneys.

"The kidney gang offers money to these people and take them to Kolkata through some commissioned local brokers of the village, and force them to sell their kidneys for Rs 3-5 lakh," he added.

After spending several days in Kolkata, the poor and unemployed men return home with the money. In some cases, they have also forced their wives to sell their kidneys.

"In several cases, these donor people run out of money very soon as they are heavy drinkers. And there is an illicit liquor trade also going on in the area," a villager said on condition of anonymity.

He said that the conscious protesting villagers were compelled to keep silent as they were threatened with dire consequences by the broker gang.

Das claimed that police had arrested a few people in 2021 for their alleged involvement in the kidney racket. PTI TR TR RG