Last year, Majid Khan, a resident of Mansehra district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, came to Islamabad in search of a job and met some people in the capital city.

“They offered me a good job in India and asked me to complete some medical tests. Due to the unavailability of a work visa, I was offered to travel to India in the disguise of an attendant of a patient,” Khan stated in his statement recorded with the FIA. However, when Khan reached India, he was detained in a hospital where during an operation his liver was stolen.

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) last month busted a gang allegedly involved in the ‘human organ trade’ and arrested two persons from the capital city.

According to the FIA, the suspects used to entice poor people and took them to India on the pretext of providing them jobs. After arriving in India, however, they were forcibly operated upon in two hospitals in New Delhi to remove their livers for sale.

Medical documents of the patients and those taken to the neighbouring country as ‘donors’ were recovered from the possession of the arrested men.

An FIA officer on the condition of anonymity told Dawn that in January this year the Prime Minister Office informed the agency about the illegal business and asked it to investigate the matter and bring the culprits to book. In March, the agency also received a similar direction from the office of the interior minister.

Investigations into the allegations by the FIA led to the arrest of two persons from whom computers and other electronic devices were recovered. But the accused had already erased a majority of the data on the computers, he added. But the details of the patients and the ‘donors’ were recovered from the devices. During the preliminary investigation, the arrested men confessed that they had been involved in the crime since 2009 and taken 28 people to India for liver transplant.

The officer said the accused invited doctors from India and arranged their stay at five-star hotels in the federal capital. Later, they placed advertisements in newspapers informing the citizens that the liver and kidney specialists would examine patients free of cost.

During the process, patients who were advised by the specialists to go for transplantation were targeted, especially those for whom donors were not available. The medical tests and matching of organs were conducted at private laboratories in Islamabad and Rawalpindi.

In some cases, the accused trapped jobless people promising them that they would be provided lucrative jobs in India. They were also told that in order to get the Indian visa, they would have to accompany the liver transplant patients as their relatives. After reaching the neighbouring country, however, the gang members took the passports of the victims and then forced them to ‘donate’ their livers for the patients.

The accused arranged the liver transplants in two hospitals in New Delhi where they had contacts, said the officer.

The accused received Rs1 million to Rs2 million from the patients for each transplant and offered Rs200,000 to Rs500,000 to the ‘donors’. The hospitals charged Rs2.1 million Indian rupees for each liver transplantation.

The FIA officer said so far they had succeeded to trace three of the ‘donors’ and got statements from two of them.

Shoaib Khan, another victim of the gang, told the investigators that after landing at the New Delhi airport his passport was taken by a member of the gang who had accompanied him from Pakistan. Later, he was taken to a hospital where he was informed about the liver transplantation of a patient. He was threatened with dire consequences in case he refused to ‘donate’ his liver.

In their statements, the complainants said they were paid Rs200,000 each on their return to Pakistan.

The investigators said they had also traced another victim, Adil Zeb, but he was yet to record his statement as his condition was serious after he was operated for the removal of parts of his liver.

In November 2014, his father Jahan Zeb approached the Aabpara police and got a case registered against the abduction of his son to India.

Adil Zeb said he was offered a job as a driver by his cousin. “I was told that I would earn lots of money in India,” he added.

“After I arrived in Islamabad, my cousin took away my passport for the Indian visa.” After he completed some medical tests, he was taken to Lahore from where he was flown to New Delhi in early October.

“After arriving in India, I was told to keep my mouth shut. My passport was also taken away,” he said. He was informed that he had been brought to India to ‘donate’ parts of his liver for a Pakistani woman patient. Later, he was also operated upon in a hostel during which parts of his liver were removed.

On the request of the police, a medical board, comprising the doctors of Polyclinic, was constituted which suggested that Adil Zeb was operated upon and “70 per cent of his liver was missing,” said the FIA officer.

In the light of the report and the entry and exit stamps on the passport, the police have registered a case against the accused.

But the Aabpara police said Adil Zeb was not pursuing the case. “He reached an out-of-court settlement with the accused, so the case is dead,” the police claimed.

Published in Dawn, April 13th, 2015

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