February 08, 2008	Friday	Muharram 29, 1429

KATHMANDU: Police in Nepal said on Thursday they were hunting for the alleged mastermind of India’s biggest illegal kidney transplant racket amid reports he was hiding out in the Himalayan nation.

“We are investigating Amit Kumar’s possible presence and links here in Kathmandu,” Upendra Kanta Aryal a senior police officer said.

Indian media reported that Kumar, aged 40 and the subject of an Interpol notice, fled to Nepal after the multi-million-dollar scandal was uncovered last month.

But Nepali police would not confirm the Indian fugitive’s presence in the Himalayan country.

“At the moment, we can’t say whether or not he is in Nepal, but we have begun our investigations,” said Aryal, the head of Kathmandu’s crime investigation department.

Last week Interpol issued notices for the arrest of Kumar and his brother, saying the two are the “subject of national arrest warrants for illegal transplanting of kidneys, cheating and criminal conspiracy.”

“It is believed that during the past eight years around 500 people were forcibly operated on and their kidneys transplanted to foreign patients in a secret operating theatre,” the global police body said.

Six people have been arrested in India over the scandal. —AFP