Karnataka State Human Rights Commission indicts 5 cops over flawed kidney theft probe

BENGALURU: The Karnataka State Human Rights Commission (KSHRC) has recommended the government to pay Rs 14 lakh within a month as compensation to the parents of a 29-year-old specially abled person who died after his kidneys were removed in 2018.
Shankarappa was kidnapped from an orphanage in Bengaluru. The KSHRC has also recommended to initiate a departmental inquiry and subject to the findings of the probe, recover the fine amount from two police inspectors, two sub-inspectors and one head constable for having failed to investigate the matter.
Inspectors ML Krishnamurthy (presently police inspector, Basaveshwaranagar) and B Shankarachar (Tilaknagar station); sub-inspectors V Santosh (presently in Govindarajanagar station) and Abraham JM (Hanumantanagar) and head constable Gopal KS (Kalasipalya) had reportedly delayed registering an FIR in connection with the incident. The personnel had also forced the accused to make a second voluntary statement though his first statement had incriminating details and filed a final report in a hurry in the court.
The conduct of the personnel, when they were deployed at Siddapura police station, violated the human rights of the specially abled person, KSHRC stated. Krishnamurthy should pay Rs 3 lakh, B Shankarachar Rs 7 lakh, Santosh and Abraham Rs 1.5 lakh each and Gopal Rs 1 lakh from their salaries towards the compensation, subject to the findings of the inquiry.
The KSHRC order came recently on a complaint from Shankarappa's maternal uncle, Shivanand K Bavoor, a resident of Manjalapura-K village in Yadgir district.
In December 2018, Shankarappa went missing from Ekata Charitable Trust, Hegganahalli Cross, Bengaluru. Shankarappa had been admitted to a hospital in Bengaluru for psychiatric treatment but was shifted to the orphanage run by the trust without informing his family members.
Trust manager Sridhar Vasudev Chowhan called Shivanand and claimed that Shankarappa disappeared while he was being taken to a hospital for psychiatric treatment. When Shivananda arrived in the city and interacted with Chowhan and others, he grew suspicious of their contradictory statements. Stating that the documents were fake and Shankarappa was missing, Shivananda approached Siddapura police on September 7, 2019 but the officials registered a complaint only on March 3, 2020, KSHRC order said.
Chowhan had confessed to police that a lab technician from a private hospital on Talaghattapura Road contacted him for kidneys. He agreed to sell Shankarappa's kidneys for Rs 3.5 lakh. However, Shankarappa died on December 28, 2018 after his kidneys were removed. The body was cremated at Sumanahalli crematorium by identifying it as that of Gundappa. The case was never investigated, the KSHRC observed.