3 Raj hospitals under lens for 184 illegal organ transplants last year

Three private hospitals in Jaipur conducted 184 organ transplant operations in 2023 on the basis of fake no-objection certificates (NOCs), with at least half the cases involving Bangladeshi donors and receivers , the police’s ongoing investigations have revealed, according to ACP Gandhinagar Gopal Singh Dhaka.

The Jaipur police on Thursday, meanwhile, also arrested two more people from West Bengal who are part of a Kolkata-based company Med Safar Private Limited with whom the Fortis Escorts Hospital in Jaipur signed an MoU a few years back to supply donors and receivers for the organ transplantation to the hospital.

“During the investigation, it was found the people involved in that company used to trade human organs by playing fraud with the citizens. Following the development, a special team of Jaipur police was sent to West Bengal that arrested the director of the company Suman Jana, and also an employee Sukhamay Nandi aka Gopal on Thursday. We are interrogating them. Police are also gathering more information about the background of the company and its staff. Further investigation is underway,” said the Jaipur Police commissioner Biju George Joseph.

The three private hospitals are Fortis Escorts Hospital, Eternal Heart Care Centre, and Manipal Hospital, all of which had their organ transplantation licenses cancelled on April 24 by the Rajasthan health department.

The police also suspect that the racket flourished since 2021, and till last month.

The matter came to light when the state’s Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) caught the assistant administrative officer of Jaipur’s state-owned Sawai Man Singh Hospital, Gaurav Singh when he was accepting a ₹70,000 bribe from EHCC transplant co-ordinator Anil Joshi for issuing fake NOCs. Later, ACB also arrested the two organ transplant co-ordinators of Fortis Escorts Hospital Vinod Singh and Girraj Sharma, whose names came up during their probe. Sawai Man Singh Hospital is responsible for issuing NOCs across 12 hospitals in the state licensed to conduct transplantation surgeries

“Gaurav Singh was issuing such fake NOCs since 2021 by forging the signature of the members of the state-level authorization committee of Jaipur’s Sawai Man Singh Hospital ,” added Dhaka.

According to the police, 98 of the cases involving a fake NOC in 2023 are from Fortis; and in 55 of these cases, the donors and recipients were Bangladeshi nationals .

The Fortis Hospital, meanwhile, extended full cooperation to the investigation.

“We affirm our commitment to the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) set by NOTTO and SOTTO for all transplant operations, ensuring compliance with required approvals from relevant domestic and international authorities, including NOCs from state departments and embassies for international patients. As an organisation, we prioritise transparency and ethical practices in all medical procedures. Any staff involved in misconduct have been terminated, and we are fully cooperating with ongoing investigations,” it said in an official statement issued on Wednesday.

The police added that there were 37 such cases, of which 16 involved Bangladeshis in EHCC, and 49 cases, of which 23 involved Bangladeshis, in Manipal Hospital.

EHCC spokesperson Ashish Khuteta said, “The accused co-ordinator was also suspended. We have submitted all the required data the police and Health Department asked. We will fully co-operate with them.”

Spokesperson of the Manipal Hospital, Ramesh Dharmani, also said, “At Manipal Hospitals, we strictly follow all the protocols and guidelines set by statutory bodies. We are and will continue to cooperate with the investigative authorities on the matter. Patient safety and well-being is of paramount importance and all our processes are aligned to ensure the same.”

Police officials say a total of 514 transplants were carried out in the three hospitals since 2019, of which over 40% involved. Bangladeshis.

“We suspect a racket that has been working in both countries over the years. However, the matter is yet to be ascertained,” said Dhaka.

Of the 514 transplants, 244 took place in Fortis , 115 in EHCC, and 155 in Manipal Hospital.

“We have so far not found any cases where the donors and receivers are from different countries. However, the blood relationship of each pair is yet to be verified. Further investigation is underway,” added Dhaka.

Indian hospitals have emerged as a popular destination for transplant surgeries for citizens from neighbouring countries. However, because the law demands that the transplants happen only between blood relatives, they travel here with donors from their countries, passing them off as relatives even if they are not, and managing to secure NOCs.

A team of Jaipur police, led by the ACP (Malviya Nagar), Aditya Poonia, visited Gurugram in April after Gurugram police arrested three receivers Muhammed Ahssanul (31), Nurul Islam (56), and Syed Akeeb Muhammed (25) and two donors Shamim Mehndi Hassan (34) and Muhammed Azad Hussain (30), all from Bangladesh, who were being treated at the Fortis Escorts Hospital in Jaipur.

“They were brought to India by a broker Murtaza Ansari who contacted a transplantation co-ordinator of Jaipur Fortis Hospital for the fake NOCs. Upon receiving the information of the arrest of two Fortis coordinators (in Jaipur), he shifted the five patients including three receivers and two donors to Gurugram’s guest house in Sector 39 on April 1 and went absconding. We found that the donors and receivers were not relatives. Two surgeries had already been done in Fortis while another was pending. We recorded the statements of both the recipients and donor and they revealed the modus operandi and details of two more people who had returned to Bangladesh ” said Inderjeet Yadav, the deputy superintendent of police of chief ministers flying squad (CID) who had arrested the suspects.

Based on Poonia’s report, the state health department, on April 17 lodged a formal FIR at the Jawahar Circle police station against the Fortis management and Ansari. The Gurugram police have also set up an special investigation team (SIT) led by DCP Gurugram East Mayank Gupta to trace Ansari’s location.

Meanwhile, during a conversation with HT at a city hospital in Gurugram (where the accused were being treated after the arrest), Ahssanul, an assistant sub-inspector of the Bangladesh Narcotics Department who is one of the organ receivers, said that he got in touch with Ansari through a relative of another patient who was being treated in Bangladesh’s IBN-Sina Hospital Dhaka but got a transplantation surgery from Jaipur’s Fortis Escorts Hospital last year.

“I had an issue with both my kidneys since childhood. When both of them failed, I needed an urgent transplantation through a donor. I contacted Ansari who also found me a donor Muhammed Hassan Majumder. My surgery was done on March 21 following which Majumder returned to Bangladesh,” he added.

DSP Yadav said the Bangladeshi nationals have also revealed that the recipients used to pay ₹10 lakh and the donor used to get ₹2 lakh for each kidney. “Fake documentations were prepared and the hospital did not verify details or a board was formed before finalising the surgery as per the protocol. We suspect that the syndicate may have got kidney transplants in hospitals in other places as well. We are yet to receive complete details from Jaipur regarding the donors and details of more cases of organ donation at the hospital in the last three years,” he said.

Another donor, Shamim Mehndi Hassan, said he got in touch with Ansari through Facebook five to six months ago, when he urgently needed money to pay-off his loan. “I was drowning in debt when my business took a hit due to Covid. I needed around Takka 400,000 ( ₹302,330) to pay off the final amount of my loan worth Takka 1,200,000 which I took in 2018 to start a mobile shop,” he told HT in Gurugram’s city hospital, adding that he agreed to donate his kidney to Nurul Hassan in March.

While Ehsanul said that he paid about a Takka 2,400,000 (around ₹1,824,220) to Ansari after the surgery, Shamim also stated that he received about a Takka 400,000 ( ₹302,330) from Ansari.

The Gurugram police added that the transactions were different in all the cases of other donors and receivers with Ansari as well. During the raid, police found that two people were yet to get the surgery done as they were found unfit for it.

The Jaipur Police has also arrested four out of the five Bangladeshi nationals arrested by Gurugram police; the fifth Syed Akid Muhammed (a receiver) was however not arrested as his surgery didn’t take place as he developed an infection in the kidneys. “However, his was all set to undergo the transplantation from the donor Muhammed Azad Hossain,” said DSP Yadav.

ACP Dhaka said: “Ansari, a native of Jharkhand, is absconding. The transaction between him and the hospital co-ordinators can be figured out once he is held. We are trying to nab him and also four to five other brokers probably from West Bengal. Two other donors from Nepal and Cambodia are also on our radar.”

He added that his team would also investigate members of the SMS authorisation committee after the state’s health department prepares a report on fake NOC cases across all the 12 hospitals in the last three years.

This team was set up by the state government on April 3. “The work is under progress. We are waiting for the data from the SMS hospital. Since it is a huge volume of data, it might take a few more time,” said commissioner of medical education, Dr Iqbal Khan.

Taking cognizance of the matter, the Director General of Health Services under the Union health ministry Atul Goel also wrote a letter to Rajasthan Additional Chief Secretary Shubhra Singh on April 16 seeking a report and immediate action against the culprits.

Meanwhile, around six doctors, two from EHCC and four from Fortis are also on ACB’s scanner. “When we checked their phones, we found some chats deleted following which we seized those devices and sent them for a forensic examination. The FSL report will reveal how many of them are involved,” said ACB DIG Dr Ravi.