Stolen Kidneys

Those laws help create a huge gap between supply and demand, and illegal transplants go on because the legal system is ill-equipped—and some say unwilling—to deal with the problem. "Most of these cases are never reported," said Manjit Ahlawat, joint commissioner of the Gurgaon police. "The person who wants a kidney benefits, and the person whose kidney has been taken benefits, because he gets a lot of money, so nobody files a complaint." He believes that the three donors that the police found in Gurgaon were likely promised large sums of money—by their desperate standards—and in exchange for their organs. Now, they must claim that they were compelled by force, because otherwise they could be prosecuted as criminals. "If they admit that they did this willingly, they will be arrested, too," Ahlawat said.

Apart from evidence derived from the interrogation of suspects and five foreigners whom the police believe were waiting for transplants and the testimony of Khan and other men whose kidneys were allegedly stolen, the police recovered letters and e-mail messages from 48 foreigners inquiring about transplants from Dr. Kumar's office. According to Gurgaon police, touts canvassed Delhi and other cities to recruit donors, focusing on the poor and unemployed. Some were allegedly asked if they wanted to sell a kidney for $1,000 to $2,500.

Khan, an unemployed laborer who earns about $2 a day when he is lucky enough to find work, says that the offer of a steady job was simply too good to pass up, and even though he was kept waiting for almost two weeks in a house with a couple guys with rifles stationed outside it, he didn't complain because he was well fed and they promised he would be paid for his time. Only when the blood test was administered did he begin to catch on. "I asked why I needed a blood test, and one of the guys pointed his gun at me and told me not to ask pointless questions if I wanted to live," he said, casually leaning against the wall on the balcony outside the isolation ward at Gurgaon Civil Hospital. Lifting up his shirt, he reveals a puckered, 10-inch incision in his side, stitched together with broad exes of black surgical thread. "When I heard that my kidney had been removed, for a long time I was in shock," he reflects. Khan, who supports five children, his mother and two sisters, has no marketable skills, and doctors say that he will no longer be able to perform the backbreaking labor that he's used to doing. "I keep thinking about how I will live now." He says he received no payment for his kidney.

Naseem Mohammad, a 25-year-old laborer from Ahmedabad, in Gujarat, has a similar story. He was waiting for work at a labor market near the Old Delhi Railway Station when a man approached him with an offer for a three-month painting contract. He was taken to a house in Uttar Pradesh for two weeks, where his recruiters told him that they were waiting for a tender to be passed before the work could begin. "I didn't try to run, because I still thought I was going to get the job," he said outside the isolation ward. "Then one day they didn't give me anything to eat. They tested my blood. Then they gave me an injection. I asked them what was in it and why they were giving it to me, and they told me it was for my own good. Then I passed out." When he woke up, his kidney was gone. "I've gone before like this with people for 15-20 days work," he said. "Nothing like this has ever happened. Once I went to Mehrauli with a labor contractor to do road work. I didn't know this will happen. I'm in shock after this. What will I do?" He, too, says he received no money for his stolen organ.

Whether they volunteered and were cheated of their payoff or were drugged and robbed of their kidneys, there is no doubt Khan and Mohammed were victims of an inescapable, suffocating poverty that made them--like millions of others--vulnerable to all kinds of exploitation.

"They were easy prey," said Gurgaon deputy police commissioner Rakesh Arya.

© 2008