CRIME and big bucks

Tackling crime would need policy interventions, social vision and political will if the establishment really wants to ensure that criminals and gangs don't control the country

Sanjay Kapoor Delhi

Some years ago when I was the editor of a local daily in Delhi, I remember reading a small item in some newspaper about 10 unidentified bodies strewn on the railway track in a radius of one kilometer. I found it bizarre that why there should be so many carcasses carelessly flung across the track. On an instinct, I asked my crime reporter to follow up on these unidentified bodies. He went to the morgue and gathered from the doctor in- charge that all the bodies had body parts - mostly kidneys - missing. The reporter was later told that nearly all the unidentified bodies that were brought to the morgue suffered from a similar fate. This was a shocking story, but the local authorities, true to their wont, refused to act.
We did another follow up. In the bastis near the railway track the crime reporter went around checking whether there was any awareness among the cart-pullers, rickshawallahs and others who did odd jobs, about the sale of kidneys. To our reporter's horror many of them raised their shirts to reveal that they had already donated their vital organ for a paltry sum of Rs 25,000. The repo-rter's presence attracted attention and he was soon surrounded by goons who wanted to know why he was asking these questions. One of them, the reporter claimed, even threatened that he would scoop out his kidney too, if he proved to be too nosy. The newspaper carried reports of the flourishing kidney trade accompanied with pictures, but it did not stir a somnolent administration.
Few months later a Delhi-based politician was arrested in the kidney trade, but nothing was heard after that.
Next time, another organ sale issue came up when it was discovered that children's body parts and organs were methodically knifed by a sex-crazed maniac in Nithari village in the industrial enclave of Noida near Delhi. Although police claimed that there was no corroborative evidence to show the presence of organ sale in the Nithari rapes and murders, many people believed that there was more to it than only sex and murder. Their belief was strengthened by the frequent trips that the house owner Moninder Singh Pandher made to Europe - a major center of organ sale industry.
There have been well-documented reports of well-equipped clinics and labs operating in Italy and Germany where organ transplant takes place quietly, away from the watchful eyes of the enforcement agencies. Organ trade in Europe is managed by the Neapolitan mafia that trafficks children and poor people from East Europe, India and Latin American countries.
Way back in 1994, an eminent surgeon and member of Parliament of Europe, Dr Leon Schwartzenberg submitted a report about the criminality involved in organ trade. His report was adopted by the European parliament. Schwartzenberg documented all the horrific instances of the gruesome trade and listed incidents in different parts of the world. He cited the recovery of a corpse in Guatemala's faculty of medicine. There were 40 other corpses in the department. He reported, "The faculty warden knocked out the beggars with baseball bats. The victims were plunged into coma and were not finally finished off after the extraction of their organs, the most profitable thing sold in the black market."
The purpose of recounting this incident is to show the brutality of the organ trade and how criminals treat poor human beings. Schwartzenberg mentions about the Indian village of Villivakkam where hardly any one is a "whole". More recently, there were reports of how women in tsunami-affected villages were selling their kidneys to make two ends meet.
Needless to say, the government's response has been lackadaisical. The latest incident where Dr Amit Kumar's accomplices was arrested near Delhi (he was arrested in Nepal) for running a flourishing and efficient kidney transplant racket shows that the trade is extremely deep-rooted. It enjoys the protection of police, moneybags and politicians. In some ways it has been firewalled from all sides giving extraordinary freedom to the criminals to carry on their lucrative business. Police had got whiff of this crime, but their resolve was weakened by timely bribes in lakhs, as was later proved. And this might just be a fragment of the massive labyrinth of corruption and devastation of human bodies, especially that of the poor.
As kidney transplant takes place in highly sophisticated environment and a team of doctors is involved, it is clear that important surgeons were neck-deep in this heinous practice. Interestingly, Dr Kumar was just an ayurvedic doctor who could not perform any operation on his own. His main function was to look for those who needed kidney transplant and to find people who were willing to sell their organs. There are reports that Kumar kept a stable of such poor donors who could be used whenever there was a demand, especially from a 'rich party'. Little is known about how many people lost their lives during these transplants. It is just possible that many of the unidentified bodies on railway tracks and trashcans could have their origin in such underground kidney or organ sale laboratories.
Organ trade is a violent manifestation of crime induced by the growing tribe of obscenely rich people who think nothing of the poor, or their right to live a healthy life. Their physical and consumerist needs takes precedence over all other considerations and they are willing to bend every possible law to attain their objective. The arrogance of the nouveau riche is leaving its dark impress in the changing character of crime and the way the Indian State is responding to it. Laws that inhibit criminal enterprise are being jettisoned in the name of speeding up economic reforms. Money laundering laws have not been implemented with the kind of alacrity one expects in times of intense global capital movement. There is little awareness about whose money is being funneled into the Indian stock market. A handful of billionaires are being pampered by the political establishment while the majority is being compulsively pushed outside the system of food security, jobs, education, health or shelter.
Some years ago there were reports of a few billion dollars waiting to be washed through the Indian banking system and stock market. Government officials denied it, but market sources confirmed that washing of foreign funds was a regular feature. Much of the funds, in many cases, are tripped back to the country by Indian businessmen. Scant respect for regulation allows many businessmen to rig the stock market and benefit from insider-trading.
Laws are being changed with impunity when they are seen to be in conflict with the interest of big business houses. Recently, in Gujarat, a big business group wanted the Special Economic Zone status to include a port. Such a decision would hurt the custom laws of the country, but the government seems too weak to oppose such moves.
On the contrary, the Indian State is perceived to be backing many of the SEZs against those who would be displaced by the coming up of these zones. The anti-Maoist operations initiated by the central forces flows from the desire to help the crony capitalists breathe easy. Interestingly, most of the areas where the Maoists are operating are rich in mineral resources and many of these tracts are being handed over to companies like the Tatas, Birlas, Vedanta, Posco and Mittals. The government is desperate to hang on to these private sector companies. Hence, it is bending backwards to do everything that they want. Even pro-poor party like the CPM lost its mind when it tried to throw out the villagers from Singur and Nandigram to benefit the Tatas and Salim group respectively.
What has actually given a sinister dimension to crime in India is the manner in which some corporate houses have leavened communalism in the country. From the demolition of Babri Masjid to the organised carnage in Gujarat (including reportedly fake encounters), money power has played an extremely dirty role. Divisive politics backed by criminal gangs help in maintaining the stranglehold of these companies. Their conduct feeds grievance against the State. The deadly nexus of the corporate rich-feudal lobbies-politicos has stretched into crime, both organised and scattered. It's not just the 'mafia' out there, crime has become a social aberration; it's not an abnormalcy, but is straight out lifted from a real life script.
The sociology of crime in neo-rich India of super growth for a handful of the fat cats will need complex testimonies of denial and affirmation. It's not a police crime bulletin anymore. It's becoming as insatiable as the subliminal desire to consume and possess. Surely, crime in India is no longer an issue that can be dealt by the police alone. It would need policy interventions, social vision and political will if the powers-that-be really wants to ensure that the criminal gangs enjoying the support of delinquent businessmen do not control the countryside and the mean streets of our cash-rich exploding metros.