NEW DELHI: Police in India's south eastern city of Hyderabad nabbed two persons and have busted a racket involving human organ transplants. Rajendra Prasad and Venkatasrinivas allegedly connived with a doctor at a government hospital and sold kidneys to those in need for handsome sums of money. They lured poverty stricken people pledging to pay them half a million rupees to donate a kidney. They then took them to a super-specialty healthcare center where Dr Ramesh Chada would perform tests and then remove kidneys. Prasad and Venkatasrinivas paid the donors just $ 2000 and would charge between one-and-a-half to two million from those who receive the kidneys, a police officer who is part of the investigation said. Police got to the bottom of this kidney transplant racket after one Yadagiri brought it to their notice. He registered a complaint against Prasad and Venkatasrinivas besides the doctor and two assistants at a local police station. Criminal charges have been slapped against all those involved, including the doctor, police said. They have also been booked under the State's human organ transplant laws. Human organ transplant rackets are widespread in India, where poverty-stricken folks from villages are lured, often cheated into donating their organs which are in high demand in under-regulated up-market hospitals in cities and metros.
