1 more held in kidney racket case

KOLKATA: The detective department has made one more arrest in the kidney selling racket. Mridula Bhattacharya was arrested from 15 Garfa 3rd Lane on Monday night. She is related to Chandana Mukherjee, one of the accused in the case.
In 2006, Mridula got involved in the racket where Chandana was playing a big role. She was asked to look for women agreeing to work for the gang.The job was simple, these women had to pose as wife or guardians of the "donor".
"The process of kidney transplantation is complicated. Several clearances are required. One of them is that the donor's spouse or guardians (in case he is not married) do not oppose his decision to give the kidney. These women were used to give the nod," said a senior officer of the detective department.
With Mridula's arrest, 10 members of the racket have been held so far. The kingpin, Manik Chowdhury alias Partha, is still eluding the police net.
Mridula used to look for women from economically weaker families who needed hard cash. These women were selected from Canning, Basanti, Machhlandapur, Swarupnagar and other areas. All they had to do was accompany the donor when he was taken to a hospital for transplantation, identify herself as his wife and give the consent. The women received Rs 15,000-Rs 20,000 for each appearance.
Mridual had also selected three youths, who were taken to a hospital in Delhi for kidney transplant. The kidney of only one of these youths matched with that of the recipient. Sources said the youth was paid Rs 1.5 lakh for "donating" his kidney.
Reconstructing the modus operandi of the gangs, Mithun Chatterjee and Pradip Mandal used to look for people in desperate need of money who would agree to sell their kidneys. Some of them like Mithun himself had joined the racket after giving away their kidneys for money.
The "donors" were sent to Prabuddha Mandal and Sandipan Das, two former hospital executives, who got the tests and other medical formalities completed.
The payments were handled by Tanmay Das, Shubhojit Biswas and Raja Mukherjee.