Kolkata: Police bust kidney racket, arrest nine; mastermind on run

Their network was spread across Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam and Uttarakhand.

The Naihati police busted an “interstate kidney racket” and arrested nine people in North 24 Parganas district on Tuesday.  Police sources said the accused used to sell kidneys in exchange for hefty amounts ranging from Rs 20,000 to lakhs. The racketeers used to contact people using fake profiles on social networking sites and chat forums. Of the nine accused, two had sold a kidney of their own. The accused operated from a rented house in Mitrapara. The owner of the house, Biswajit Pal, and a staff member of the water supply department of the Naihati Municipality, Sarfaraz Ahmad, were also involved.

Sources said Ahmad introduced the other accused to Pal. Their network was spread across Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam and Uttarakhand. Those arrested have been identified as Iqbal Ansari of Imamganj, Bihar, Rajendra Prasad Sharma of Jaipur, Sanjay Sharma of Sarbala, Uday Chandra and Ansarul Haq of Malda, Suresh Choudhury of Dehradun and Bharati Chetri of Assam.

“Mohammed Akhtar, the mastermind of the racket, is still untraceable… we are conducting raids…” said a police officer.

Fake documents racket: one held

The CID Monday conducted a raid and arrested one person for running a fake documents racket in Kolkata. Police sources said the raid was conducted at a shop in Natun Bazar, Jalpaiguri, near Dabgram. The shop, sources said, was owned by Goutam Sarkar (27) of Siliguri. 35 forged marksheets and certificates of different persons and different educational institutions were recovered. A laptop, a printer, 31 forged rubber stamps of headmasters of several schools, inspectors-in-charge of police stations, local councillor, pradhan etc. were recovered. A case was registered at North Jalpaiguri police station.