This scribe had earlier questioned the police probe in Nithari. Bribes paid to the police indicated that the murders generated funds which facilitated the creation of a graft nexus for continuing business. Other circumstantial evidence was noted to suggest the possibility of a global organ trade—an angle that required investigation. It was recalled how an organised racket had carried on in China initiated by the People’s Liberation Army. After initially denying this allegation by a defecting Chinese surgeon, the Chinese government did acknowledge it, and ordered a crackdown on illegal organ trading.
After Amit Kumar, accused of illegal kidney transplants, was exposed, it was reiterated that the organ trade angle in the Nithari murders needed a fresh probe. Amit Kumar was operating in the same area in which the Nithari murders had occurred.
Two events occurred after this was written. First, the police disclosed that a Northeast resident working as a staff nurse in a Delhi hospital had been arrested for collaborating with Kumar. One expected that the nurse’s background and connections, and how and why Amit Kumar zeroed in on her, would have excited a reporter’s curiosity. Also, was there any significance in Nepal being Amit Kumar’s sanctuary for evading the police?
Secondly, three neighbours of Pandher informed the police as well as the media that they had recognised Amit Kumar as a frequent visitor to Pandher’s house. An unnamed CBI official immediately assured the press that no definite connection of the Nithari killings to the organ trade had been established. But would the police kindly probe and tell us why Amit Kumar used to meet Pandher? Was he merely making social calls on an alleged rapist and his psychopathic servant?
After a hundred years people still speculate on the serial murders by Jack the Ripper. Are the Nithari serial murders less horrendous?
(Puri can be reached at rajinderpuri2000@yahoo.com)
