After images of the alleged kingpin were splashed on TV screens, “I could identify the doctor who took away my kidney.”

That’s the story of Khan: a rickshaw puller-turned-philanthropist, small-time television actor from Bareilly, and latest in the racket’s list of victims.

Now 28, Khan says he lost his kidney at a Jalandhar hospital on April 26, 1998 after he was lured by a set of unknown people from Lucknow. He pulled rickshaws there for a living, and the bait was promise of a government job. One of the five doctors who performed the surgery was Amit Kumar, who then went by as “Dr Sanjay Kumar”, Khan claims.

“They got me the job of a gardener at a telephone exchange and started taking me for blood tests regularly. On one of those days, my kidney was fraudulently removed.”

Khan says he protested and later suffered an attempt on his life. “I fled Jalandhar and lodged a complaint with Lucknow Police. But nothing came of it, except a few meetings with state politicians trying to work out a compromise. But I didn’t yield.”

He then took his case to the National Human Rights Commission in Delhi in 2001. But, again, much was lost in procedural mazes.

He finally took his struggle to fine pages of a book: an autobiographical account of his travails was published by Media House publications as a book in 2004 called ‘Mera Sangharsh’ (Hindi) and ‘They Stole My Kidney’ (English). The book saw publication of versions in Telugu, Tamil, Bangla, and Kannada in 2007.

A decade after his kidney was removed, Khan grew from an illiterate rickshaw-puller of Lucknow to a high school-pass theatre artiste and small-time television actor, with little help from people who were moved by his story. “I came to stay in Delhi and worked under Habib Tanvir. A British journalist helped me tell my story. And here I am.”