A kidney transplant racket was busted and three persons were arrested after a youth they were trying to con into donating kidney raised an alarm at the Apollo Gleneagles hospital in Salt Lake.

The intended victim was 21-year-old Suman Rudra. Those arrested are Hriday Dubey, Mithun Chatterjee and Chandana Mukherjee. “During the initial interrogation, they admitted to carrying out this racket for the last two years,” said Jawed Shamim, Deputy Commissioner (Detective Department). Preliminary investigation points to the role of several doctors and a couple of hospitals, “but Apollo is not involved”, he said.

The racket came to light on February 2, after Rudra was admitted to the super-specialty hospital for a series of tests. An unemployed youth residing in Shyamnagar, North 24 Parganas, he had been promised a job in Kolkata by his neighbour Chatterjee and brought to the city last week.

“He was then introduced to Dubey and Pradip Mondal. The duo told him that he needed to undergo a medical check-up in relation to the job and convinced him to get admitted to Apollo Gleneagles,” Shamim said.

Rudra became suspicious after the hospital staff began conducting a series of complicated tests on him. When he inquired why they were being carried out, he was told that the tests were to ascertain if his kidneys were healthy enough for donation.

Alarmed, he complained to the hospital authorities, who apprehended Dubey. Mondol managed to escape. Rudra then lodged a complaint with the Phoolbagan police.

Taking over the case, the Detective Department interrogated Mondol, who revealed the role played by Mukherjee in the racket.

“Mukherjee was arrested from Thakurpukur. We recovered fake medical certificates and several incriminating documents from her residence. Among the documents recovered were a few relating to organ transplant from New Delhi’s Ganga Ram Hospital.