The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday conducted raids on Apollo Hospital as part of its ongoing probe into the sensational Cuttack kidney sale incident. ED officials inspected several documents during the raid at the hospital, sources said. On May 30, a three-member ED team had visited the Seven Hills Hospital at Visakhapatnam and interrogated some doctors and higher officials in connection with the case.

Two alleged cases of kidney sale had come to fore in Cuttack last year in the months of April and May, making waves in the State. In two separate cases, some middlemen had allegedly lured two women, Padmini Nayak and Namita Nayak of Nayak Sahi in Mangalabag locality of Cuttack city, to part with their kidneys with promises of lucrative amounts of money. However, the two women were not paid the amounts promised to them by the middlemen.

After the matter came to light, the Commissionerate police first arrested one Sharmistha Nayak, who had acted as a broker in these transactions, her husband Dillip Nayak and another middleman Niranjan Choudhary alias Nirakar. later, it also arrested brother of a kidney recipient, his friend and a director of Seven Hills Hospital N Prabhakar Babu.

According to sources, the Commissionerate Police had closed its investigations in the kidney sale case without reaching a logical conclusion. Considering the seriousness of the matter, the ED has begun investigations into the matter on its own after about one year of the incident coming to light, sources said.