Ruby Hall kidney racket: Pune police arrest two 'middlemen'
A case was registered at the Koregaon Park police station in the city two days ago against 15 people including the managing trustee of Ruby Hall Clinic
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Two 'middlemen' have been arrested in connection with the alleged fraud during a kidney transplant procedure conducted at a private hospital here in March this year, police said on Friday.
A case was registered at the Koregaon Park police station in the city two days ago against 15 people including the managing trustee of Ruby Hall Clinic and some employees of the hospital based on a complaint lodged by the Maharashtra government's health department.
The accused also included the woman who donated her kidney, the recipient man and his wife.
"We have arrested two out of 15 accused -- Abhijit Gatne and Ravindra Rodge. They were produced before the court and remanded in police custody till May 18," said a police officer.
The two were allegedly the middlemen in the deal, he said.
The charity commissioner's office on Friday, meanwhile, said that it has initiated an inquiry against the hospital after taking note of the First Information Report.
As per the police, a woman from Kolhapur (an accused in the case) allegedly posed as the wife of a man who needed a transplant, and donated her kidney to a young woman patient. 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 the blood group mismatch.
On March 29, four days after undergoing the transplant surgery at Ruby Hall Clinic, the woman revealed, following a dispute over money, that she was not the man's real wife. She had been promised Rs 15 lakh for fraudulently posing as one, she claimed.
The hospital then alerted police. But the FIR named hospital authorities too for allegedly not verifying the documents before the surgery.
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