Kochi: Alarming information has come to light about the illegal harvesting of organs from Indian nationals who were trafficked to other countries during the questioning of a man who was arrested by the Kerala Police on Sunday.
Police sources said on Monday that the accused, Sabith Nasar, has admitted to facilitating the trafficking of several people from Bengaluru and Hyderabad, and one from Kerala, for organ harvesting abroad.
Sabith claimed the trafficking was conducted through a man from Hyderabad and not directly, a police source told PTI, amidst reports that Indian nationals were trafficked to a Middle Eastern country for organ harvesting.
"As per his statement, he admitted to trafficking several persons to that country as organ donors while he was working there. He claimed that it was not done directly but through a man from Hyderabad," the source said.
According to him, all victims were from Hyderabad and Bengaluru, besides one person from the northern Palakkad district of Kerala.
The police source said they had no other information about the Palakkad person who was claimed to have been victimised by the organ trafficking mafia.
"He claimed that there is a Palakkad man...we have to search and find him," the source said, adding the accused would soon be brought into police custody for detailed interrogation.
Meanwhile, Sabith was produced before a local court on Monday which remanded him to judicial custody.
According to the police, the information they received indicated that the accused, to make money, allegedly cheated the victims by trafficking them after convincing them that they would be provided with legal compensation for donating their kidneys in foreign countries.
He has been charged under IPC section 370 (trafficking of a person) and the Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1994.
He was picked up by the Nedumbassery police from the Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL) on Saturday following a tip-off from Central agencies. His arrest was recorded on Sunday.
(With PTI inputs)
