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NT Bureau
Chennai, Jan 28:

        Following the disclosures made during the interrogation of the three arrested brokers in the kidney racket, the CB-CID Police have started questioning the 35 women who have reportedly undergone operations at various hospitals for selling their kidneys.

        Exploiting the poverty of women living in tsunami settlements at Ennore, it was alleged that kidney brokers have cheated them without giving the promised money after relieving their organs. Moreover, one of victims Malliga in her police complaint had alleged that she was cheated to part with her kidney with the assurance of Rs 1.5 lakh, whereas she was given Rs 30,000 only.

        Acting on her complaint, the CB-CID Police conducted an investigation in which three brokers — Sundaraju alias Raju from Chennai, Kader Shareef hailing from Tiruchi, and Seeni Mohammed, a resident of Ramanathapuram — were arrested and lodged in Puzhal prison. The three accused were now under police custody for interrogation by the CB-CID to unravel the wide network of a thriving kidney racket in Tamilnadu.

        Also, a list of 57 recognised hospitals in Tamilnadu for kidney transplant have come under police scanner, even as the details for the surgeries done by these clinics and hospitals involving organ trade were being probed by the CB-CID team. More specifically, the private hospital at Madurai where Malliga was alleged to have undergone surgery after forging her identity through fake certificates and a Chennai hospital in which broker Raju's wife too was operated to donate her organ have been asked to furnish all details regarding this case.

        During the interrogation of Kader Shareef, it was revealed that 35 women from Chennai were taken either to Tiruchi or Madurai for kidney transplants in recent days. While donors came through Raju, some other contacted Shareef's cell phone and came voluntarily to donate their organ for monetary gain, he alleged. Based on this disclosure, the CB-CID had begun a detailed interrogation of all the 35 women to bust the kidney racket in the State.

        The name of the hospitals in which they were operated, the brokers involved in this racket, whether the woman donors were cheated with promise of big money, but got very little of the assured sum, and whether these donors have forged their identity by producing fake certificates at the hospitals at the time of operation were all being investigated by the CB-CID team. A police official said brokers who cheated poor women with the lure of rich cash, but gave them a paltry sum after the organ transplant would face severe consequences.

        However, till now there were no direct complaints from either one of the 35 women taken up for questioning by the CB-CID which had stumbled upon these donors in the first place while interrogating the kidney racketeers.