With yet another case of kidney sale surfacing, Health and Family Welfare Minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak on Monday asked his departmental Secretary to submit a detailed report in the matter.
“I have asked my department’s Secretary to submit a detailed report on the deal between the donor and the receiver along with the recommendation of the Authorisation Committee of the Department of Medical Education and Training (DMET) that had given permission for the kidney transplant. The department will take necessary steps after going through the report and initiate exemplary action against any official if his involvement in the case is proved,” Nayak told reporters.
Earlier in the day, Chairperson of the Authorisation Committee and DMET Director Dr Sonamali Bag had met the Health Minister and apprised him of the entire incident. Then, the Minister asked the Health Secretary to submit a detailed status report.
Meanwhile, a special team of the Commissionerate Police which had gone to Visakhapatnam to collect information on the kidney transplant at the Seven Hills Hospital returned to Bhubaneswar on Tuesday morning.
The police will get the jailed key player in this racket Sarmistha Nayak of the Nayak Sahi in Cuttack on remand for further interrogation in the kidney sale racket.
Although Sarmistha is being portrayed as the ‘mastermind’, it sounds most unconvincing. There are reasons to suspect that the roots of this racket go far deeper and that there are a number influential ‘promoters and collaborators’ behind this trade in human organs.
But will the police be able, or be allowed, to catch themIJ That seems unlikely, going by the kind of half-baked investigation that they have limited themselves to so far.