GUNTUR: Guntur district police arrested four of the eight accused in Kidney racket, that hogged the headlines three weeks ago. Producing the accused -- Kodali Babu Rao (48) of Duggirala, Indla Nagamalleswara Rao (53) of Narasaraopeta, Aravapalli Edukondalu (31) of Narasaraopet, Neela Prasad Babu (31) of Tenali, before the media on Thursday, Guntur Rural SP Ch Appala Naidu disclosed the case details. According to him, Kodali Babu Rao, the main accused for the first time in 2016, sold a kidney belonging to one K Devi to one Bommisetty Ranga Rao for `5 lakh and he got 10 percent commission for the same. At that time he developed friendship with Indla Nagamalleswara Rao. Similarly, he sold a couple of kidneys more for the commission.
M Venkateswarlu Naik (29) of Chandrakanta Tanda in Durgi mandal, Guntur district took loans to the tune of `7.5 lakh from different people but failed to repay them. When the pressure started building on him for clearing the debts, on the advice of one Ramavat Manthru Naik, he decided to sell his kidney to one Siva Naik, who is undergoing treatment for a failed kidney at Mahatma Gandhi Hospital in Narasaraopet.
The deal was for `6 lakh. However, during a blood test, it was found that blood groups of donor and recipient did not match.
At that time, lab technician A Edukondalu guided him to Babu Rao and another accused Brahmam to facilitate the sale of the kidney. Brahmam along with his friend Ravi and Babu Rao took Venkateswarlu Naik to Vedanta Hospital in Guntur and Vijaya Hospital in Vijayawada for different blood tests.
One Ch Sivanageswara Rao sent `2 lakh in advance to Babu Rao, part of which was distributed among Venkateswarlu Naik, Mantru Naik, and Edukondalu.
Later, stating that if the caste and community of the donor and the recipient are different it might raise problems, Babu Rao made Venkateswarlu Naik and his wife Hanimi Bai to change their names as Ravuri Ravi and Ravuri Lakshmi and stay at a rented house belonging to Edukondalu at Narasaraopet.
Taking Aadhaar cards from Venkateswarlu and his wife, he created duplicate Aadhaar cards by morphing pictures and changing names with help of one Neela Prasad Babu of Tenali. Using those fake Aadhaar cards. he took help of Indla Nageswara Rao to apply for residence certificate and family members certificate in Narasaraopet MRO’s office. Through Nageswara Rao, one K Vijaya Kumar was contacted and the pressure was brought on the MRO to expedite the process for residential certificate and family members certificate. Finally, MRO signed the certificates, which were countersigned by the RDO.
However, during police verification at Narasaraopet II town police station, Inspector Sambasiva Rao found that data on the Aadhaar card was not tallying with that in the database. The applications were sent back to the MRO without clearance and the reason was explained. Suspecting foul play, the MRO directed her subordinates to cross verify and it was found that the real names of the couple for whom the certificates were applied for are not the same as in the application and Aadhaar cards.
Subsequently, a complaint was lodged with Narasaraopet police and during the course of investigation, the kidney racket got busted. The Guntur Rural SP said that they are still investigating the case and collecting more details to verify if there are any more people involved in the case and searching for the four accused who are at large.
Antecedents of main accused
Kodali Babu Rao has the past record of selling kidneys for hefty amounts to the needy on a commission basis
A motor mechanic by profession, he was an accused in a murder case
in 2012
He was under heavy debts and to clear them, he decided to sell the kidneys for a commission