A file picture of Amit Kumar

Kathmandu, Feb. 7: A Kathmandu police team today arrested an Indian said to be the kingpin of the Gurgaon kidney transplant racket from a jungle resort in southern Nepal, soon after he had checked in under an assumed name.

Police sources said the man, alleged to be Dr Amit Kumar, and a Nepali associate had booked Room No. 6 of the Hotel Wildlife Camp in Sauraha, about 60km from the Indian border town of Raxaul.

They said Kumar, believed to be involved in over 500 illegal transplants, checked in around 10 this morning under the name Manish Singh.

Soon after checking in, the sources added, Kumar and his associate asked for a copy of The Himalayan Times which had front-paged a report on the racket and about the presence of the main accused in the Himalayan country.

The sources said Kumar cut out the report and returned the newspaper to the reception.

Witnesses who saw Kumar said he wore a hat and sunglasses. They said a short while later, a police team reached the hotel and showed the receptionist a picture of the fugitive doctor and wanted to know if he was staying in the hotel. Even as the receptionist nodded, Kumar’s Nepali associate fled from the hotel. The police team then rushed to the room and formally arrested Kumar.

The doctor, who has been on the run ever since Indian television channels broke the story, apparently didn’t resist while being handcuffed.

Indian embassy officials in Kathmandu denied knowledge about the arrest. They said in the normal course, Nepalese authorities have to inform the mission about the arrest of any Indian national. “We are yet to receive any information,” said an official.

Senior superintendent of police Upendrakanth Aryal, however, confirmed that an Indian national had been arrested from Sauraha. But he said a positive identification was possible only after the arrested person is interrogated.

“They are bringing him to Kathmandu tonight,” he said.

In Delhi, the CBI said it would approach Nepalese authorities for deporting Kumar.

“We will be approaching the Nepalese authorities immediately seeking his deportation as he is wanted by Haryana police in connection with the kidney racket,” CBI director Vijay Shanker told PTI tonight.

The racket came to light last month after some labourers complained to the police that they were taken for medical tests to a private hospital on the pretext that the government had made the practice mandatory for getting jobs.

A few hours later, they would be taken for surgery to get their kidneys removed. If anyone protested, one victim said, he would be threatened with harm.

The victims, who would be paid between Rs 50,000 and Rs 1 lakh, had named an agent, who the police tailed for some days. Interpol had issued red corner notices against Kumar and his brother Jeevan on February 1. The notices followed a request from the CBI after Haryana police discovered an illegal hospital at a house in Gurgaon where the transplants were carried out.