Mr Naqvi told a press conference that Fawad Mukhtar, who led the gang, and his co-accused had been arrested and the police team that did the job would be awarded a cash prize of Rs500,000.
He said the main accused unlawfully extracted the kidneys of 328 people and transplanted them to his rich clients.Mr Naqvi said that the suspect, who had been arrested at least five times in the past, had confessed to performing 328 such operations and this number might go up as interrogation was underway.
The chief minister claimed that Mukhtar’s assistant was basically a mechanic who would administer anaesthesia to the victims.
CM Naqvi says main accused unlawfully extracted kidneys of 328 people
The gang, reportedly active in the areas of Lahore, Taxila and Azad Jammu and Kashmir, conducted kidney operations at homes instead of an operating theatre at a hospital. The CM said local patients would be charged Rs3 million and foreigners Rs10 million for a kidney transplant.
The CM said the notorious surgeon was arrested multiple times, but each time he managed to secure bail and resumed the illegal business.
However, he vowed that the government would ensure proper prosecution so that there was no need to arrest him for the sixth time. “The chief secretary and his team are working and the prosecution has been directed to submit a strong challan with the court,” he said, adding that the policemen who helped Mukhtar escape last time had been “suspended”.
The matter to hand over the case to the FIA would be discussed, Mr Naqvi said.
In reply to a question, the CM said three deaths had so far been confirmed due to the so-called operations conducted by Mukhtar’s gang.
Another gang was busted in March 2023
Pakistani authorities have busted a gang involved in the illegal transplant of kidneys to wealthy foreigners, a practice flourishing in the impoverished nation amid an economic crisis.
Police and health department rangers raided a hidden clinic in Rawalpindi near Islamabad on Monday night, arresting 10 people, including doctors and nurses.
Hassan Akhtar, head of a Punjab Human Organ and Transplant Authority team, said three suspected donors and two recipients, one from Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, were also arrested.
Mr Akhtar, who led the team, said further raids were conducted on Tuesday to arrest the remaining network members.
The network included several people who would go to villages and small towns in the central province of Punjab and convince people to sell kidneys to wealthy foreigners, mostly from Arab countries and some from Europe.
Wealthy foreign buyers pay up to $50,000 for a kidney transplant, but the bulk of the money goes to intermediaries, and the donor hardly gets around $3,000, according to a nephrologist in Islamabad.
Pakistan enacted a law to control the illegal sale of body organs in 2010 that envisaged up to 10 years in jail and a fine for transplants other than at established hospitals.
However, experts said the law had not controlled the practice due to corruption, rising poverty, and established criminal gangs working beyond the country’s borders.
