Pathetic stories of men who sell their kidneys to support their families are hardly new in India. But the scale of the latest scandal is appalling. Police who raided a clinic in Gurgaon, a prosperous city outside New Delhi, believe that 400 or 500 transplants have been carried out over the past nine years using kidneys removed from duped workers, sometimes at gunpoint. They say that four doctors, five nurses, 20 paramedics, three private hospitals, ten pathology clinics and five diagnostic centres were involved. The clients, who apparently paid up to US$50,000 for their replacement kidney, came from Britain, the US, Turkey, Lebanon, Greece and Saudi Arabia.

Police apparently colluded in the racket. The main doctor, Amit Kumar, fled to Nepal after being tipped off, but has now been extradited. Indian newspapers are incensed because it appears that Kumar had a long record of involvement in kidney rackets. He was arrested in 1994, but jumped bail and later started up other clinics in apartment buildings in Gurgaon. One of these was raided in 2000, but he continued working, even after being featured in a television expose. “Due to its scale, we believe more members of the Delhi medical fraternity must have been aware of what was going on,” said the Gurgaon police commissioner, Mr Mohinder Lal.

A patient found by police at the clinic said that he was forced into the operation. “I had no idea about kidney transplants, but when they made me lie down on the stretcher, I was terrified,” he told the New York Times. “I knew that these people meant to do evil to me. When I woke up, a doctor said my kidney had been removed. He said I would be shot if I ever told anyone what happened.” Other men said that they had received no post-operative treatment and that compensation had not been discussed with them. ~ New York Times, Jan 30; AFP, Feb 7