Kidney racket scandal in IT city shocks India

By Alistair Scrutton

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The uncovering of an illegal kidney transplant racket in a booming IT city has gripped India, with reports hundreds of poor laborers may have been duped or forced into donating organs to wealthy clients, including foreigners.

Hundreds of people from across northern India had their kidneys removed at a private house, which had a state-of-the-art operating theatre hidden inside, after being lured to Gurgaon, a city of hi-tech companies just outside New Delhi.

"We suspect around 400 or 500 kidney transplants were done by these doctors over the last nine years," Mohinder Lal, Gurgaon's police chief, told the Hindustan Times.

Several people have been arrested, including some doctors, police said.

The case, one of the largest transplant rackets reported in India in recent years, has dominated the country's headlines and sparked calls for the government to tighten regulation of kidney transplants to stop backstreet operations as global demand rises.

"Dr Horror" was how India's Mail Today described the ringleader of the racket in a front-page headline on Monday.

The doctor accused of heading the group may have fled the country, according to police, quoted as saying he appeared to have been tipped off. As many as 50 medical officials may have been involved in the racket.

At least five foreigners -- two U.S. and three Greek citizens -- were found in a luxury guesthouse operated by the doctor running the racket, Lal was quoted as saying by local media.