The probe of the present case, in which they were arrested last week, has been now handed over to the Crime Branch
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Two middlemen arrested in connection with alleged malpractice during a kidney transplant at a hospital here had donated a kidney each themselves in the past by fraudulently posing as relatives of the recipients, Pune Police said on Thursday.
The probe of the present case, in which they were arrested last week, has been now handed over to the Crime Branch, an official said.
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The case was registered against 15 people including the managing trustee of Ruby Hall Clinic here and some hospital employees at Koregaon police station late Wednesday night, based on a complaint lodged by the Maharashtra government's health department.
The accused included a woman who donated her kidney by allegedly lying about her identity.
Police have arrested Ravindra Rodge and Abhijit Gatne, the alleged middlemen in the case.
A police officer said that Rodge himself, with the help of another person, had allegedly donated his kidney to a girl in Pune some years ago by claiming falsely that she was related to him.
Similarly, Gatne had donated his kidney to a Bengaluru resident by posing as his uncle in 2012, he said.
The two were also involved, as agents, in two fraudulent kidney donations in Thane and Coimbator, the official said. In both cases, the donors had posed as relatives of the recipients for obtaining the concerned authority's nod for organ transplantation.
Rodge and Gatne's police custody was extended till May 21 by a local court on Wednesday.
Additional commissioner of police (crime) Ramnath Pokle said the case has been transferred to the crime branch unit (1) for further investigation.
According to police, a woman from Kolhapur (now one of the accused) posed as the wife of a man who needed a kidney transplant.
She donated her kidney to a young woman patient and in turn, the young woman's mother donated her kidney to the man.
Such a swap involving two patients and their relatives is permissible when the patients cannot receive a kidney from their own kin because of a blood group mismatch.
On March 29, four days after undergoing the transplant surgery at Ruby Hall Clinic, the woman revealed her real identity after she had a dispute over money. She had been allegedly promised Rs 15 lakh by the recipient man to pose as his wife.
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