Thrissur: Even after being alerted with shocking information that around thirty people from a coastal panchayat in Thrissur had traded their organs, including kidneys, for money, the police closed the investigation, stating that "no useful information was received."
With the ongoing probe into an international organ trafficking racket revealing links between one of its middlemen and the region's coastal villages, the complaint has once again become a topic of discussion.
Five months ago, a social worker lodged a complaint providing the names, addresses, and phone numbers of as many as six donors, including four women. The complaint aimed to shed light on the operation of a racket that exploited poor and vulnerable women, giving them Rs. 5 lakhs in exchange for their organs.
Although the investigation was closed, the police filed a closure report recommending that "this case should ideally be investigated at the state level by a special investigation team." No steps were taken on that recommendation either.
On November 1 of last year, CA Babu, president of the Swantham Charity Society, lodged a complaint about the organ trafficking racket with the Chief Minister. The complaint stated that a mafia had purchased kidneys and livers from several individuals in exchange for money.
Babu decided to proceed with the complaint after learning that organs from around 30 people in a single panchayat had been traded in this manner. The organ traffickers primarily targeted women entrapped in debt. However, the organ donors are reluctant to reveal the location where the surgeries took place.
Although the donation of a human organ requires about 20 documents, the complaint stated that most of the donors had furnished fake documents provided by the organ trafficking racket. The Chief Minister’s office handed over the complaint to the city police.
The SHO, who investigated the complaint, submitted a report to the Guruvayur ACP. The response received by the complainant from the ACP stated that "though the parties in the complaint were interrogated, no useful information was received from them. It would be ideal to engage a special investigation team to probe such complaints."
Despite previous complaints about widespread organ trading in several locations across the coastal region, no specific investigations have been carried out in this direction.
