A ‘bloody’ business, quite literally

Filmmaker Syed Ahmad Afzal came across a report earlier this year about drought-hit farmers in Bundelkhand selling their blood for money. Their story left the director so shocked that he decided to make a film on the subject and bring the issue of blood mafia to public attention. And this is the subject that Afzal’s next film Laal Rang, which stars Randeep Hooda, deals with. While blood theft is a gruesome crime, Afzal tells us what shocked him the most and says, “What’s more appalling is the fact that that farmers are selling blood to buy basic things like salt. They belong to the lower strata of society and they need money. But blood theft crime is a more horrendous than organ trade and it happens on such a huge scale.”

Talking about his latest release Laal Rang, Afzal says, “In the film, we have only given a sample of a small region (Karnal) where blood mafia is prominent. In India, there is a shortage of about three million units of blood every year and the demand can be easily met if just two percent of India’ populace donates blood. In Delhi-NCR alone, they fall short of one lakh units every year.” Asked about the reason behind this shortage, and he explains, “It’s just lack of awareness. There is a myth that you become weak after blood donation. There is no awareness, without which people won’t come out and donate blood for the needy.”

During his research for the film, he travelled to a medical college in Aligarh and that’s when he discovered how people are trapped by the blood mafia. He says, “They target people who look helpless and desperate. Many a times, getting blood from hospitals gets very difficult and in their desperation, people tend to look for any and every avenue where they can find help. That’s when they go to the blood mafia and pay a price for it and end up becoming easy prey. There should be more awareness in India about this issue, otherwise the mafia would continue to operate unimpeded.”

He also expresses his disgust over how people can be so unscrupulous to trade blood. Syed explains the two demons within society that are to be blamed for this evil. He says, “First, there is are the myths surrounding blood donation that make people apprehensive about doing it. Secondly, people in cities don’t always have enough time for doing this conveniently. Say if someone wants two blood units from a hospital, he first needs to give two replacements back to the hospital. Now that means someone will have to spend 90 minutes to come and donate blood. So instead he chooses to pay for it and save time. The hospital finds a replacement on their own by catching hold of anyone outside even though, according to the rules, blood cannot be sold.”