Mumbai: Investigations into the attempted kidney transplant using forged documents at the L H Hiranandani Hospital in Powai, which was busted on Thursday, have revealed that one of the middlemen arrested in the case had also been arrested for a similar crime in 2007.
The police are now looking into his activities from 2007 till date.
The police had on Thursday arrested Brijkishore Jaiswal, his son Kishan and two middlemen identified as Vaijendra Bisen and Bharat Sharma. Jaiswal was in need of a kidney and had admitted a woman, who he had introduced as his wife Rekha, as his donor. It was, however, found Rekha was not Jaiswal’s wife at all, after which the police were alerted. “Inquiries have revealed that Bisen was arrested in 2007 by the Unit III of the Mumbai Police Crime Branch in connection with a similar racket. We are finding out more about his movements from that time till now,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police Vinayak Deshmukh, Zone X.
Joint Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Deven Bharti, who was Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) in 2007, added that Bisen was part of a major kidney transplant racket in which a Chennai-based doctor had also been arrested at the time.
The Powai police are also investigating whether the lack of adequate verification of the paperwork submitted by Jaiswal was an error of commission or omission on part of the hospital staff. The possible involvement of hospital staffers in the racket is also being investigated.
Hospital suspends transplants
Dr Sujit Chatterjee, CEO of the Hiranandani Hospital said the hospital will stop doing transplant procedures until this matter was cleared.
“We have set up a five-member committee headed by the medical director to check cases of the past six months. We are not experts in validating certificates. If somebody submits a marriage certificate, we cannot tell if it is forged. We have kept all transplant procedures on hold until this matter gets cleared. We can't tell how long it will take but my medical director starts work on it tomorrow,” Dr Chatterjee said.
(With inputs from Roli Srivastava)
