Raiganj (North Dinajpur), Dec. 2: A young man clutched his hip, screamed “my kidney, they are here to take it away” and a few hundred villagers swarmed in and stoned three “outsiders” around him.

An hour later, the man scared for his kidneys was missing but two of those with him were in hospital.

The duo — sub-inspector A.S. Patil and constable Vilas Patel — had come all the way from Thane, near Mumbai, looking for the young man who had allegedly fled after stealing over Rs 25 lakh.

When they got hold of him this afternoon, he raised the alarm and villagers mistook the police for organ traffickers.

North Dinajpur police chief Milon Das said Patil and Patel reached Raiganj last evening. “They were looking for a man aged about 25 in connection with a break-in at Kalyan in October. They said the accused was from Vatol, about 20km from Raiganj town, and that his name was Sagar,” Das said.

In plainclothes, the Thane duo and the cop in charge of the police camp at Vatol set out in search of Sagar this morning. “Sagar had earlier been charged with minor thefts and the local police knew he had gone to Mumbai and returned home,” Das said.

Around 2pm, local cop W.B. Lama spotted Sagar. “As we caught him, he started shouting that we were kidnapping him for his kidneys and a large crowd gathered. When Lama tried to say we were the police and the fellow was a wanted felon, they started hurling stones,” Patel said before being wheeled into the X-ray room.

A doctor said Patil had fractured his arm and Patel was hit on the chest.

Patel said they were lucky to have been able to run away from the mob. Sub-inspector Patil was carrying a revolver but that would have been of little use against 400-odd people.

He described Sagar as just over 5ft in height, slim, dark and having sharp features.

The inspector in charge of Raiganj, Sujit Ghosh, said: “Vatol is notorious as a hotbed of organ trafficking and we had arrested one of the kingpins there last year.”

Bazarpeth police station in Kalyan said Sagar had broken into the office of a construction company where he worked.