Kerala

NIA to probe larger nexus of racket in Kerala's Nedumbassery organ trade case

Later, the NIA filed a report in the NIA Court in Kochi arraigning three more persons as accused.

Toby Antony

KOCHI: The NIA which has started a probe into the organ trafficking case registered at Nedumbassery police station will look into the larger national and international nexus of the racket. The national agency had filed an FIR in the case at the NIA Court in Kochi recently.

The accused persons listed in the FIR are Valappad native Sabith Nasar and others. The case is registered under Section 19 of the Transplantation of Human Organs Act (Commercial dealing in human organ transplantation) and Section 370 of IPC (Human trafficking). As per the FIR, the Ministry of Home Affairs notified NIA to take over the probe into the Nedumbassery case considering its grave nature and international ramifications on July 1. As directed, the NIA took over the probe and re-registered the case.

Later, the NIA filed a report in the NIA Court in Kochi arraigning three more persons as accused. They are Kalamassery native Sajith Shyam, Ballamkonda Ramprasad alias Prathapan of Vijayawada and Kochi native Madhu Jayakumar who is currently at large and staying in Iran. On Monday, the national agency filed a petition before the NIA Court seeking a directive to hand over all evidence collected by Kerala Police in the case.

“The agency had questioned Sajith when he was intercepted by the Bureau of Immigration (BoI) at Nedumbassery airport in May this year. Later, a preliminary probe was launched regarding the network behind the trafficking of Indian citizens to Iran after promising them a huge amount for donating their organs.

After the deal is struck, the racket members will force the donors to hand over their passports to them. Once the organ is donated at government-approved hospitals in Tehran, donors will be given a smaller amount than what was promised.

As the passports of the donors are in the custody of racketeers and as they are stranded in a foreign country, donors will be forced to follow the instructions of the racket and return home with whatever amount they received,” sources said.

Though Kerala Police had arrested three persons in the case, NIA following its preliminary probe, found that there was a larger network with links across the country.

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