Pune cops unearth agents’ past links in questionable kidney transplants

PUNE: The city police on Wednesday told a magisterial court that four past cases of kidney transplant based on false relationship claims have come to the fore during the custodial interrogation of the two agents — Ravindra Rodge and Abhijit Gatane — arrested in connection with the kidney transplant row at the Ruby Hall Clinic.
While the police have been able to unearth the duo’s past links with questionable kidney transplants, they conceded in their report submitted to the court that the two haven’t spoken much about their links in the Ruby Hall Clinic case or the money they took from the Moshi-based organ receiver. This prompted the police to seek an eight-day extension of the duo’s custodial remand.

Assistant public prosecutor Dilip Gaikwad submitted, “The police are suspecting that the two agents were active members of an inter-state gang. The investigators need sufficient time to unearth all these details and trace some of the suspects who are on the run ever since the registration of the FIR.”
The court, however, extended the duo’s custodial remand only till May 21.
Of the four cases, Rodge had donated his own kidney to a girl in Kalyaninagar by claiming to be a domestic help in her house while Gatane had donated his kidney in 2012 to a Bengaluru-based receiver by claiming to be his uncle, police said.
In both cases, another agent had facilitated the transplant papers and operation and the police are now looking for him. The report stated that six years ago, Rodge and Gatane combined their effort to facilitate a kidney transplant on the father of Badlapur-based doctor by a donor from Islampur in Sangli district by showing the latter as a family friend. The surgery was conducted at a private hospital in Thane.
More than a year-and-a-half ago, the duo in the fourth case got a Pune woman to donate her kidney to a man from Pandharpur by showing her as the receiver's wife. This surgery was done at a hospital in Coimbatore, the police told the court.
Additional commissioner of police (crime) Ramnath Pokale said, "The city crime branch has now taken over the investigation of the kidney swap surgery case from the Koregaon Park police. We will study all the documents and the FIR and will question the two arrested agents in the case from the start."
Earlier, prosecutor Gaikwad submitted that the agents have not shared details relating Aadhaar and voters' identity cards' forgery and sought time to recover money which they have received in the case. He submitted that the agents were not sharing details of the money transaction. He said the police needed to find out the doctor, medical social worker and hospital panel member with whom the agents were in touch.
(With inputs from Gitesh Shelke)