Lead surgeon in kidney racket arrested

Hyderabad: The Saroornagar police took Dr Rajashekhar, the prime accused in the kidney racket case, into custody in Chennai, an official told Deccan Chronicle. Dr Rajashekhar has reportedly performed the most number of surgeries involving illegal organ transplants.
Special teams of the police were working to bring Dr Rajashekhar to Hyderabad for questioning and investigation.
The police are also planning to seek the custody of all the nine accused who were arrested and remanded on Saturday.
The kidney transplant racket was busted by the Hyderabad district medical and health officer and the Saroornagar police, and two donors and two recipients were found at the Alakananda Hospital at Saroornagar on January 21.
During the course of investigation, it was found that one of the accused involved in the racket has been carrying out these surgeries since 2023. Over 20 kidneys had been bought and transplanted in this racket.
The nine persons arrested on Saturday also included the Alakananda Hospital’s managing director Dr Guntupally Sumanth, general surgeon Siddamshetty Avinash and others. Dr Avinash has been performing illegal surgeries since the past seven months. Two key organisers — Pavan alias Leo and Laxman — are currently absconding.
Surgeries involving illegal organ transplants were carried out at Janani Hospital between April 2023 to June 2024. Pavan, another organiser, was helping in sourcing doctors. One of the two doctors, who he sourced, was Dr Rajashekhar, the lead surgeon, who performed maximum of these surgeries, for Rs 10 lakh each.
The leak of information regarding registered patients awaiting kidney transplants from the government-run Jeevandaan programme may have allowed organ brokers to get into action, it was suspected on Sunday.
Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, Dr Sree Bhushan, nodal officer for the Jeevandan programme, said that it was suspected that the accused got the information about the patients from the leaked Jeevandan data.
"The Jeevandan list was leaked in 2023 and that seems to be the source of information for these brokers. We are trying to look into how and at what point in the process could something like this occur,” Dr Bhushan said.
It is quite a strict process but goes through a long chain of officials at the level of primary healthcare centre, hospital and Jeevandan officials,” Dr Bhushan said. “The data could have leaked at any stage. We will be looking into this and see how to make the process more secure."