: The city police on Tuesday arrested three agents involved in kidney racket hailing from the State. The arrest follows the suspicious death of Dinesh Marru, (22) hailing from the city in Colombo last month.
The accused, Noothi Venkatesham, (38) of Chityal in Nalgonda and D. S. Pavan Srinivas, (25) of Vanasthalipuram, took Dinesh and another man Kiran to Colombo after they allegedly agreed to sell their kidney in last week of March.
However, Dinesh died on March 30 reportedly due to heart attack in Colombo.
The police said that a Colombo-based doctor is the kingpin of the racket. He collected between Rs. 40 and Rs. 50 lakhs from persons in need of kidney transplantation and paid between Rs 4-5 lakhs to the donors.
Rs. 3.9 lakh deal struckBoth Kiran and Dinesh struck a deal for Rs. 3.9 lakh each with the agents, investigations revealed.
Explaining the modus-operandi of the gang, Hyderabad Commissioner Anurag Sharma said that the duo had collected details of those willing to sell kidneys from websites and contacted them through emails and facebook. “Around 20 persons were taken by Venkatesham and Srinivas to Colombo in the last few years and they received a commission between Rs. 1 lakh and Rs. 1.5 lakh for each deal,” he said. The racket came to light after Ganesh Kumar, brother of Dinesh, lodged a complaint with the Central Crime Station (CCS) raising doubts about the cause of his brothers’ death in Colombo. The police who registered a case under various Sections of Information Technology Act nabbed the agents after analysing their phone call data records and emails. The police also arrested Govind Suryanarayana, (29) for his role in the racket.
