Inter-state kidney racket busted: One woman held

Kolkata: A 44-year-old woman was arrested from Jagacha in Howrah on charges of her alleged connection with an inter-state kidney smuggling racket.

The woman, Chandana Guria, was arrested during a joint raid by Uttarakhand Police and Howrah Police Commissionerate.

In 2017, Uttarakhand police had initiated a case in connection with a kidney smuggling racket and arrested some people following a preliminary investigation. The police had come to know about Chandana from the arrested persons and contacted senior officers of Howrah Police Commissionerates.

On Saturday night, a joint raid was conducted by Uttarakhand Police and Howrah Police Commissionerate. They arrested the woman.

Police came to know that she was staying at a rented house at Jagacha for the past two years. She claimed herself to be a nurse. Although Chandana told the landlord she worked as a nurse, she never disclosed about her nursing home or hospital.

In the same area, she had opened a health centre at Maliary Road in Jagacha and named it Wellness Centre.

She opened the health centre just a few months ago. The health centre was scheduled to remain open from 8 am to 10 pm. However, it remained closed most of the time in a day.

Meanwhile, the locals are unaware of what actually used to happen inside the health centre.

The police are probing to know whether counselling of patients used to take place at the health centre to convince them for treatment in other states following which their kidneys were allegedly removed.

The woman hardly interacted with the locals. But recently they noticed a change in her lifestyle. The arrest of the woman from a residential area like Jagacha left locals surprised.

Sources said the police are trying to ascertain whether there are more people involved in the racket.

It may be recalled that the police in Bengal had also probed into the kidney smuggling racket and arrested the people involved in this connection.