A small report in The Times of India quoting a TV channel disclosed that on December 7, 2006 Shiv Sena chief Balasaheb Thackeray’s granddaughter purchased a portion of the nursing home owned by the kidney racket kingpin Dr Amit Kumar, alias Dr Santosh Raut. Dr Kumar had been indicted by the Mumbai police for conducting illegal kidney transplants in that nursing home in 1994. Later Dr Kumar shifted to Gurgaon where he resumed his illegal activities. He is reputed to have made over 600 illegal kidney transplants.

If the TOI report is correct, the property purchase by the Thackeray kin must have occurred therefore well after the nursing home had acquired considerable notoriety. The TOI concluded its brief report by saying: “However, there doesn’t seem to be any connection between the buyer, Thackeray’s granddaughter, and Dr Raut beyond the commercial transaction.” The newspaper did not divulge how this conclusion was reached. Since the kidney racket kingpin, Dr Kumar alias Dr Raut, had been apprehended in Nepal just a day before the TOI report appeared, this conclusion perhaps was reached after a lightning probe by the Mumbai police. Nevertheless, some further questioning of this commercial transaction may be required for obtaining further leads.

Investigations of the kidney racket have disclosed that Dr Kumar functioned in both Gurgaon and Noida to conduct his illegal transplants. This is the same area in which the Nithari serial killings of over thirty victims, mostly poor children, were discovered. The Nithari mystery is still being probed but no credible explanation for the murders has surfaced thus far. On April 11, 2007 this scribe had raised questions related to the Nithari mystery that have not been satisfactorily addressed. In the light of the kidney racket those questions bear repetition.

1. Why did Moninder Singh Pandher and his servant, Surendra Koli, collude to kill the children and dispose of their bodies? The initial police theory of cannibalism did not wash. When Koli was made to eat a cooked human body part by the police he vomited.

2. The police theory that Pandher used his premises for immoral traffic, by utilizing the services of call girls, who were later raped and killed by his psychopathic servant, Koli, also does not wash. How does this theory square with so many of the victims being small children?

3. Even after Pandher knew that his servant was accused of being a serial killer of children he bribed the police to protect his servant. Pandher himself was charged only with the relatively minor crime of indulging in immoral traffic. To protect himself from that would he willingly become complicit in the serial murders of scores of children? And would the former sub-inspector of the UP police, Simranjeet Kaur, accept bribes to protect a serial murderer unless a continuous flow of money was involved? And would money be paid to bribe the police (we know not how many) unless the crimes generated funds to make the payments worthwhile?

4. Two maidservants of Pandher, Maya and Nisha, helped the servant Koli to procure the children. Why should the maids get involved in procuring children for psychopathic, sex-driven killers? One six year old child who providentially escaped murder identified Koli and one of the maids who tried to lure her. Where are the maids now? Does the CBI know about their whereabouts?

It had been pointed out earlier that systematic killings for organ trade by doctors serving the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had been discovered in China. Dr Wang Guoqi who had earlier served the PLA testified before US Congress in 2001 that he had extracted organs for trade from 100 prisoners executed by the PLA. At first the Chinese government denied the charges, but later confirmed them and cracked down against the illegal organ trade being carried on in China.

Is it a coincidence that the kidney racket trail leads to Nepal? Does it travel further from there? Is it a coincidence that the kidney racket was taking place in the vicinity of the Nithari serial murders? Is the kidney racket just the tip of the iceberg and there is in fact a big racket involving other organs and bone marrow for which there exists a huge global market? Is it not a fact that children’s organs can be transplanted into adults and are superior because they are less contaminated? Is it not a fact that poor children in hugely populated third world countries present the easiest and most expendable targets for which few tears would be shed...?

These are troubling questions that need to be addressed. No credible answers can be expected from the CBI if there exists the slightest possibility that political VIPs could be involved in the racket. Names of UP politicians were being recklessly bandied about in Nithari when the crisis was at its height. If the organ trade indeed exists it must have international ramifications. The clients could be abroad. Only a thorough probe by Interpol or other reputed international agencies would satisfy public misgiving. Will the government act? 

February 8, 2008

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