Surgeon arrested in kidney trafficking racket in India

India is facing new allegations of kidney trafficking, months after a Telegraph investigation exposed a similar issue involving Myanmar citizens being lured to Delhi to sell their organs.

According to The Times of India and other local media outlets, Delhi Police have arrested a 50-year-old surgeon for alleged involvement in a racket that entices patients from Bangladesh into illegal kidney transplants.

Dr Rajakumari, a visiting consultant at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital and Yatharth Hospital, was arrested along with six others accused of operating an organ donation network between Bangladesh and India. The Delhi police confirmed Dr Rajakumari was under house arrest and that her bail was denied by a lower court.

These new accusations are unrelated to the Myanmar case previously uncovered by the Telegraph. Police said that Dr Rajakumari performed approximately 15-16 transplants between 2021 and 2023 at Yatharth Hospital.

In this alleged racket, patients from Bangladesh were lured by middlemen and the doctor, who falsified documents from the Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi to claim a relationship between donor and recipient, a requirement under Indian law. India's Transplantation of Human Organs Act, enacted in 1994, mandates that organs can only be donated by living donors who are near relatives, or under proven altruistic purposes.

Although the government’s authorisation committee had rejected transplants at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, Dr Rajakumari allegedly conducted the surgeries at other hospitals.

The case seems to align with the Telegraph’s findings, which exposed a scam involving the forgery of identity documents to falsely present kidney donors as relatives of patients, enabling transplants to be performed at the Indraprastha hospital.

At the time, Apollo Hospitals expressed that it was “completely shocked” by the revelations and announced an internal investigation. The hospital firmly denied any allegations of deliberate involvement or implicit approval of illegal activities.

Dr Rajakumari, whose LinkedIn profile lists her as a senior transplant consultant at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, performed the alleged illegal surgeries at other facilities. Apollo clarified that she was engaged on a fee-for-service basis and was not on their payroll. The hospital has suspended her and provided information for the investigation.

Yatharth Hospital also denied direct association with Dr Rajakumari.

The National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO) has requested an urgent report from the Uttar Pradesh state government and previously urged Delhi authorities to investigate the Telegraph’s disclosures.