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Manik Chaudhury (42) alias Partha had been evading the police for the last 10 days. The police has sent teams to Delhi, Coimbatore and Chennai to trace him.
Both Partha and Patra were produced in court and remanded in police custody till February 27.
In the wee hours of Friday, DD officers picked up Partha from Dawoodpur village, around 90 km from Kolkata. “Partha was arrested from a village in the Sandeshkhali sub-division around 2.30 am,” said Deputy Commissioner (DD) Jawed Shamim.
Soon after the racket was busted, Partha, who was originally from Mukundapur area of Kolkata, fled his residence to take refuge in a village of North 24 Parganas. Dawoodpur, situated close to the Indo-Bangla border, does not even have electricity.
At Dawoodpur, Partha took shelter in the house of Anjana Patra alias Anjana Pradhan, who was also involved in the racket. According to sources in the police, once a donor was fixed, Patra would pose as his wife or mother to help him get a no-objection certificate from the doctor. “After fleeing the city, Partha had visited Delhi once and stayed for a couple of days at Badarpur,” said an officer. The police have also come known that Partha had connections in Chennai, Coimbatore and Warangal.
With Friday’s arrests, 12 people have been arrested in connection to the racket. Around eight of them, including Partha, had become a part of the racket after donating their own kidneys. “Ten among the 12 arrested were mainly suppliers who were linked to Partha in some way or the other. They would bargain for the price of the organ with the donors,” said a police officer.
“Prices could range from anywhere between Rs 30,000 to Rs 3 lakh,” he added.
He began by selling his own kidney
Disowned by his father and driven by the desire to make quick money, Manik Chaudhury (42) alias Partha joined the kidney racket in 2005. He grew up in Banerjee Para Lane of the Thakurpukur area and went to Babuji High School. He was not interested in studies and wanted to set up his own business. After clearing his secondary examinations in the third attempt, he quit studies and tried small businesses. By the time he was 18, he had collected lakhs by duping people. “He started a real estate business and would collect advance money from people by showing them bogus plots near the E M Bypass,” said a police officer.
His father came to know of Partha’s misdeeds when people who had been duped came knocking at his door. He sold all his property and cleared Partha’s dues but disowned his only son and left the city to settle in Raigunj. Partha was left alone in the city to fend for himself. In 2004, he saw an advertisement in a Kolkata-based daily that someone in Chennai was looking for a kidney donor and was ready to pay any price for it. Partha traveled to Chennai and donated his kidney at the Kaliappa Hospital on RA Puram Road. According to the police, during this transaction Partha met other people associated with the trade and was dragged into it. After sending a few donors from Kolkata to Chennai and Delhi, he took the sole charge of donors in Kolkata and built a team. He was the main liaison man between Delhi and Kolkata.
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