March 29, 2024

Grim window on kidney theft

Kidney kingpin is doctor
Impoverished Indian
labourer Mohammad Salim had one of his kidneys stolen headed up by a doctor
whom the local media are calling the “kidney kingpin”, Amit Kumar. An estimated
500 other poor labourers received much the same treatment. Indian authorities
believe that Dr Kumar, who is now in jail awaiting trial, sold most of the
kidneys to wealthy foreigners. Salim’s kidney appears to have been given to a
Greek woman.

Two years ago Salim
was lured to Delhi from his hometown of Meerut by the promise of a job.
Instead, he was taken in a “big black car” to Kumar’s clinic. He was forced to
give a blood sample and then sedated. When he woke up 15 hours later he had acute
pain in his side and was missing a kidney. 

He was threatened with
death if he revealed what had happened to him. He told the media: “As I entered
the building there were four men standing there with guns. They told me not to
speak about anything that happened there or they would shoot me.” After the
surgery, another doctor told him, “We found you in your home town so we can
also send a bullet there to kill you too.”

Now Salim is unable to
work for more than a few hours at a time. His children have all dropped out of
school, and some days he doesn’t make enough money to feed them. The Australian
media has picked up the kidney sale scandal because Dr Kumar is believed to
have invested heavily in the Australian property market. ~ The
Age, Mar 13
, Far
Eastern Economic Review, Jan 2009



Jared Yee
organ donation
organ trafficking