Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Organ-ised Capital crime

Sikander Ali is a poor man surviving on one kidney. All he wanted was a job - any job. He was not one of those who cry in despair. Today, this 26-year-old just can't hold back his tears.
Sikander is one of many unfortunate victims of a commercial kidney transplant racket, which has its tentacles spread far and wide - from Delhi to Amritsar and far beyond.

"They've made a mockery of my life," Sikander, a construction worker, says referring to the people who conspired to get his kidney removed.

Every year, lakhs of people come to the national capital from all over the country looking for job. Sikander Ali also left his village in Hapur in search of a better life. Little did he know that he would be rendered incapable of even supporting himself.

"I would much rather wish that they would have killed me rather than leaving me in this condition. I would have been really thankful to them," says Sikander.

Sikander's target of angst is Sushil Arya, a rich businessman who lives in Lawrence Road in the capital.

Sikander says Arya picked him from the labour chowk at Fatehpuri and offered him a job as a foreman. As a pre-requisite for getting the job, he was asked to undergo a medical test. On that pretext, he was taken to Amritsar where he alleges his kidney was removed.

"It was his wife who told me that they have cheated on me and taken out one of my kidneys. I was just stunned. I asked them 'what is a kidney'."

When contacted, Sushil Arya's wife Aarti refused to talk to CNN-IBN. Since then Sikander has been frequenting the National Human Rights Commission office, a place where thousands of people like him come in search of justice.

When CNN-IBN team accompanied Sikander to NHRC to check the status of the case, it was found out that Sikander's case had been enmeshed in the red tape for the last four years.
"I had come to Delhi thinking that Delhi's legal system is bigger and better. I thought Delhi police is efficient and I will get justice," Sikander regrets.

A chargesheet normally does not take more than three months. But in Sikander's case, even after two-and-a-half years, the police are yet to act.

Police say it's a case of missing documents. "We will finalise it very soon. Within a month's time. It has been delayed for the want of certain documents," a police official reasoned.
In 2001, a kidney sale scam was busted in Amritsar in which five doctors - Dr P K Sareen, Dr P K Jain, Dr O P Mahajan, Dr Bhupinder Singh and Dr Bhushan Aggarwal - were arrested. Among the nearly 2,200 recipients of commercial organ transplants in this case was Sushil Arya.
When CNN-IBN's Special Investigation Team went to meet Arya, he was bed-ridden, surviving because of Sikander's kidney.

"I want that they bring me back to my original health," demands Sikander.

As his fight for justice drags on, Sikander's case has again brought to focus the illicit trade in human organs and the inefficient law-enforcement system in the country to fight this menace.
(Urvashi Sibal and Sidhartha Gautam in Delhi)

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