In Gujarat's Anand, farmers, daily-wagers are paying debts with their kidneys

According to the FIR, the victim Harshad Solanki, was taken to Tamil Nadu to surgically remove his kidney to pay off the debt he had taken from a local loan shark. The Crime Branch of Gujarat Police which took over the case arrested four people involved in a racket in which debt-ridden farmers were entrapped to sell their kidney after failing to pay back their debt with interest.

This is not a one-off incident. The state since 2016 has been witnessing incidents of farmers and daily wagers being lured into selling their kidneys to pay off their debts. A majority of these organ rackets have been busted in Gujarat’s Anand district.

A loan to pay back loans

In a similar case in May 2023, five people, including a private money lender were arrested by Amreli district police for forcing a farmer to sell his kidney to pay back the interest of a loan. A case was filed against them under sections 386 (extortion by putting a person in fear of death or grievous hurt), 506 (2) (criminal intimidation) and 114 (abettor present when offence is committed) of the Indian Penal Code and sections 40 (molestation of a debtor for the recovery of a loan due by him to moneylender) and 42-d (demand, charge or receive from a debtor the interest at a rate higher than fixed by the government) of the Gujarat Money-Lenders Act’s.

The arrests were made on the complaint of Ghoha Gajera, a farmer in Kotda village in Amreli. Gajera said he had borrowed ₹15 lakh from local loan shark Satubha Vala at 2.5 per cent interest rate for the marriage of his daughter and son 15 years ago.

“Over the years, Vala had been frequently asking for his money. I sold 24 bigha (14.8 acres) of my land at a low price around eight years ago and repaid the loan with interest. However, Vala claimed I was yet to pay back ₹3 lakh of the interest amount. Over the subsequent years, the region witnessed bad agrarian produce due to which I couldn’t pay him the remaining amount. But around four years ago, I took a loan of ₹3 lakh from a local villager, Patgirbhai, a GSRTC bus driver at four per cent interest to pay Vala,” Gajera said in the FIR.

Gajera said he paid Patgir an interest of ₹12,000 per month for a year, but couldn’t manage after that.

“To pay interest to Patgirbhai, I ended up taking a loan of ₹1.5 lakh from Gadhvibhai, a resident of Jasdan town in Rajkot district, around three years ago at ₹54,000 as annual interest. Since then, the money lenders have been demanding payment of interest on the loans. I have already sold 24 bighas out of the 28 bighas of land I used to own,” he said in the FIR.

The option of selling a kidney to pay back the loan amount was suggested to Gajera by one of the money lenders, as per the FIR.

Farmers, daily wagers gullible victims

A kidney racket that primarily targets debt-ridden farmers and daily wage earners was first busted by Gujarat Police in 2016. The issue had come to light when Amirmiya Malek, a resident of Pandoli village in Anand district filed a complaint stating that his kidney was removed without his consent and he was paid ₹2.5 lakh for the same. The case, however, fell flat after the 13 witnesses turned hostile during trial in a sessions court in Petlad town in January 2022.

Then aged 27, Malek, a small-time cattle trader was in dire need of money after his wife fell sick. Desperate for a loan, Malek approached his friend Rafiq, who suggested him to sell his kidney instead of taking a loan. Soon after, Malek left home for Delhi without informing his family. A week later, his family filed a missing complaint with the local police. They were relieved when he returned home 10 days later.

“My husband went outstation for some work for 10 days. After his return, he seemed unwell and frequently complained of stomach ache. Eventually he confided in us, showed us the scar and told that he had sold his kidney. Of the total amount, around ₹1 lakh was used to pay back the debt and rest were invested in fixed deposits for our two daughters,” Zahedabibi, Malek’s wife said.

A month before Malek, another resident of Pandoli, Arvind Gohil, a farmer had also approached Rafik for a loan. In dire need of money, Gohil, had agreed to sell his kidney without much thought. In January 2018, he left his home for a month telling his family that he had got a job in another state. He returned home with ₹2.25 lakh cash in hand. He used the money to pay off the pending medical bills of his sister-in-law.

Modus operandi

During investigation, Gujarat Police identified 13 others who had sold their kidneys and arrested three organ racket agents from Anand. According to police, six of the victims were taken to Colombo, Sri Lanka for illegal kidney-removal surgery.

“The main agent would pay the mutually-agreed amount for organ donation after the surgery and the victims were allowed to return home once the wound healed,” says a police officer of Ahmedabad Crime Branch.

Noticeably, all 12 out of 13 people who had sold their kidney were daily wagers or small-scale farmers from Pandoli village in Anand. Pandoli has a population of about 15,204 of which around 4,000 families live below the poverty line.

“Some of the villagers who live in abject poverty would suddenly disappear and return after a while with a lot of money. We are a small village where more than 70 per cent of the villagers are either daily wage earners or small farmers with a patch of land at their backyard. So, when people began to come back with money, it was noticed easily by the locals,” tells Jagdishbhai Solanki, former sarpanch and taluka panchayat member of Pandoli.