NEW DELHI, Feb 15: An Indian police inspector has been arrested for taking bribes from doctors accused of running an illegal kidney transplant racket on the outskirts of New Delhi, police said on Friday.

Ravinder Singh, an assistant sub-inspector in Delhi’s police force, is accused of taking a Rs2 million ($50,000) bribe to let off doctors alleged to have forced poor labourers into donating their kidneys.

Singh and his colleagues visited the doctors on Jan 7 after receiving complaints, said police spokesman Rajan Bhagat.

“Instead of booking them under laws they let them off on a bribe,” he said.

Police in Gurgaon, one of Delhi’s satellite cities, broke up the ring at the end of January. Amit Kumar, the man accused of heading the racket, managed to escape to Nepal before he was arrested and handed back to India last week. During interrogation, one of the doctors said they had paid bribes to Singh and other officers, Bhagat said.

Singh was arrested late on Thursday. Six other Delhi police officers have also been charged with extortion but have not yet been arrested. Media reports said they had fled.

In 2007, a police officer was arrested for taking bribes to suppress evidence against a businessman and his servant in connection with the murder of 19 women and children, whose dismembered corpses were found buried in and around their house outside New Delhi.—Reuters