Accused remanded in FIA custody for 7 days

Illegal kidney’s transplant case

NOWSHERA: The court of civil judge-cum-judicial magistrate on Wednesday handed over the accused arrested for running an illegal kidney transplant centre in Pabbi a day earlier to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on a seven-day remand.

The accused were produced before the court of Judicial Magistrate Qazi Ijazur Rehman to obtain their physical remand.

The police had arrested Dr Abdul Aziz Dawar, who claimed to be a Urologist at the Hayatabad Medical Complex, Kamran Khan, a nursing assistant, technicians Farooq Ahmad, Naveed Ahmad, Muhammad Bilal and driver Shahid Iqbal for their involvement in illegal kidney’s transplant in Pabbi town.

The police also registered a case against the owners of the private hospital, Muhammad Tayyab, who is a drug inspector in Mardan, Dr Saifullah Khan Afridi and ring leader of the group Zafar.

Zafar is a resident of Punjab and was allegedly operating the group.

The two patients, who were being operated upon when the FIA team conducted the raid were identified as Muhammad Babar and Samiullah, who were shifted to the Institute of Kidney Diseases in Hayatabad, Peshawar.

Muhammad Babar, a resident of Nankana Sahib in Punjab, said that he had sold his kidney for Rs150,000.

Samiullah, an Afghan national, said that he had purchased the same kidney for Rs1.6 million, adding the money had been paid in advance to the group for the transplant.

The security guard of the hospital Imran said that three transplants had been carried out in the past 20 days at the centre.

Dr Abdul Aziz said that accused Zafar was the ring leader of the gang, alleging that he ran the business in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Pervez Khattak took notice of the incident in his hometown and directed the health secretary to present him a detailed report.