KOLTKATA: Police in the Indian state of West Bengal police have arrested a woman’s husband and brother-in-law after she complained that they tricked her to sell her kidney after her family failed to pay dowry.
The woman, Rita Sarkar, aged 28, complained that her husband of twelve years and her in-laws tortured her often for dowry and took advantage of her appendicitis to steal a kidney from her.
“Around two years ago, I began suffering from acute stomach ache. My husband took me to a private nursing home in Kolkata, where he and the medical staff told me that I would be fine after removing my inflamed appendix through surgery,” she said.
However, her pain intensified after the operation. “My husband warned me not to disclose the surgery in Kolkata to anyone. I begged him to take me to a doctor to treat the pain, but he ignored me.”
Rita was reportedly taken to North Bengal Medical College and Hospital by her parents relatives around three months ago and doctors found that her right kidney was missing.
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She sought a second opinion at a nursing home in Malda and learnt that one of her kidneys was indeed not there.
“I then understood why my husband implored me to keep quiet about the surgery. He sold my kidney because my family couldn’t meet his demand for dowry,” she alleged.
Rita then filed a complaint at Farakka police station in northern Bengal, the native place of her parents, against husband Biswajit Sarkar, a cloth merchant from Lalgola in Murshidabad district, his brother Shyamal and her mother-in-law, Bularani, who is on the run.
The husband and his brother have been arrested. The men reportedly confessed that the kidney was sold to a businessman in Chhattisgarh.
A senior police officer said they will raid the Kolkata hospital where the surgery was conducted. Police suspect a kidney smuggling gang is associated with the crime, and a special team has been formed to investigate.
India has strict anti-dowry laws but domestic violence and crimes against women are common as the dowry demand often continues for years especially in rural areas.
