The doctors at Dr LH Hiranandani Hospital allegedly went ahead with a risky and fraudulent transplant surgery despite knowing that the blood test reports or Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) of the donor did not match with that of the recipient, revealed a Powai police probe into the kidney-donation racket unearthed in July.
The gross negligence was revealed in the witness statement of Mukesh Roongta, the brother of a kidney recipient, who “bought a kidney for his sister” from donor Sunder Singh, now a key case witness. Roongta, in his statement, which is part of the police’s case chargesheet submitted in a city court on Monday, revealed that during the video interviews conducted by the local authorisation committee in April this year, one of the doctors had raised an alarm about the fact that Sunder Singh’s HLA did not match that of the recipient. Roongta added, however, that the other doctors present there shouted this doctor down. “The HLA reports of Singh and Dimple do not match. Are you sure you are siblings ” the doubtful doctor had asked. The other doctors, however, remained unfazed and “all of them” said in unison, “They may not have matched due to certain medicines she is on. But that can be corrected with other medicines.” Roongta got in touch with Baijendra Bisen, a man identified as a key middleman and scam’s orchestrator, earlier this year to ‘source’ a kidney for his sister, Dimple Himmatranka. Bisen then roped in Sunder Singh, promising him a huge sum of money if he sold his kidney.
