Man arrested for running kidney racket in MP, son commits suicide

Rajendra Nager, 52, confessed to the police that he along with two Gujarat-based accomplices, Vinod Patel and Girish Soni, ran the racket over the past few years and successfully arranged for 13 donors from Ujjain and Indore.

One kidney was sold for anything between Rs 1.30 lakh and Rs 1.50 lakh. While the donor was given Rs 50,000 to Rs 60,000, the racketeers pocketed the remaining amount.

When he came to know of his father’s true colours, 28-year-old Vikas Nager, Rajendra’s only son, hanged himself at his house on Saturday morning.

Following his wife’s death in 1999, he claimed to have left Ujjain after being kicked out from a cloth mill where he was working, and lived in Nadiad’s Santram temple. It was there that he came into contact with Soni and Patel. He sold his kidney and returned to Ujjain where he tried to lead a normal life by trying to run a shop.

When he could no longer make money, he returned to Nadiad and promised to work for the duo. He again came back to Ujjain and developed a network of people who would arrange fake documents which helped donors pose as close relatives of the kidney patients.

The Mahakal police seized several police station stamps, municipal corporation documents and school leaving certificates from Rajendra’s room in Ujjain’s Girdhar Hotel on Friday. It was a chance arrest because the police were carrying out routine checks ahead of President Pratibha Patil’s visit to the temple town.

Rajendra admitted he was a resident of Ujjain but fumbled when asked why he was staying in a hotel. When he was interrogated at the Mahakal Police Station, he spilled the beans, though he could not name all the donors.

Besides Rajendra, the Ujjain police have arrested three persons and are looking for others while a team has left for Nadiad to take Soni and Patel into custody. According to Rajendra, the kidneys were transplanted in a hospital each in Ahmedabad, Chennai, Coimbatore and Indore.

Rajendra’s only son Vikas,...