Police today launched an investigation into a suspected Colombo-based kidney racket following death of a 26-year-old city youth in Sri Lanka.
One Ganesh, brother of the deceased Dinesh Kumar Maru, filed a complaint with Central Crime Station (CCS), a wing of the Hyderabad Police, alleging that his brother died due to removal of kidney from his body in Colombo on March 30, a senior police official supervising the probe told PTI here.
Dinesh, a resident of Kishanbagh here, had gone to Colombo for a job on March 22 and called up his family members here saying that he was in the Sri Lankan capital along with two others, police said.
However, on March 30, the Sri Lankan police informed Ganesh that his brother was dead and that he can collect his body from the Colombo general hospital.
The body was subsequently brought to Hyderabad on April 3 after Ganesh contacted the Indian Embassy in Sri Lanka and the last rites were also conducted.
"The autopsy report had stated cardiac arrest as the reason behind Dinesh's death. However, the complainant suspected this version saying that his brother was only 26 years old.
"He had verified his account on a social media site and email accounts, which purportedly mentioned conversation on kidney transplantation issue his brother had with one person who had offered him a job in Colombo," the official explained.
Ganesh suspected that a kidney racket led to his brother's death and lodged a complaint with CCS Police, which has taken up the investigation.
"We have begun checking Dinesh's cellphone call details, his account on the social networking site and also his email accounts on the alleged conversation which stated of offering Rs 15 lakh for sale of kidney, besides to and fro fare to Colombo, free accommodation under the guise of a job offer," the official said.
Only after a thorough probe into the matter it will be known whether the kidney was removed and if it was the cause of Dinesh's death, he added.