NEW DELHI: Two persons, including the personal staff of a senior doctor at Apollo Hospital here, were today arrested in connection with the kidney racket busted last week, taking the total number of arrests in the case to 12.
The arrested persons have been identified as Brajesh Chauhan alias Dharmendra (40), personal staff of a nephrologist in Apollo Hospital, and Deepak Kar (55), who was like a mentor to the racket's kingpin Rajkumar Rao, a senior police officer said.
While Chauhan was detained by police from Delhi yesterday, Kar had surrendered at a police station in West Bengal on Monday, hours after Rao's arrest. Both of them were arrested today and Kar is being brought to Delhi on transit remand.
Chauhan's role came into light after the interrogation of Rao and inspection of documents obtained from the hospital's internal assessment body for verifying documents related to transplant surgeries, the official said.
Initially, investigators were not clear about Kar's involvement in any of the cases but later it emerged that he was in touch with the middlemen. His involvement was further confirmed with the police analysing his call detail records.
The investigators have so far come across 10 cases of kidney transplants facilitated by the racket in Apollo Hospital here. It is suspected that they had facilitated more transplants and two other prominent city hospitals are also under scanner.
During interrogation, Rao has named over 30 persons linked with the racket, in connection with which the police have so far arrested, three middlemen, three personal staff of senior doctors, four donors, the kingpin and his mentor, the officer added.