On Sunday, May 19, 1996 at 12:30:00 PM UTC+5:30, Mike Holmans wrote:   
   > The following article appeared in the Observer, review section, p8, 19   
   > May 1996. Monetary amounts have been converted to US$, at least in part   
   > because it looks as though they were converted from US$ to GBP for the   
   > purposes of original publication.   
   >   
   > The author is Jenny Barraclough, producer of the BBC series Knife To The   
   > Heart.   
   >   
   > WHOSE POUND OF FLESH?   
   >   
   > In the central police station in Bangalore, a thin, wiry man was lifting   
   > up his shirt to show his scar. His wife and two children, dressed in   
   > their best, watched impassively. The man said he had gone to hospital to   
   > have his ulcer operated on, but when he came round he found his kidney   
   > had gone. he ended his impassioned account with tears in his eyes and the   
   > words; 'I don't want the money. Just give me my kidney back'. Police   
   > Chief Vincent D'Souza looked pleased - another victim to bolster his   
   > investigation, and a western film crew to witness his mastery of the   
   > case. It was the biggest investigation of his life.   
   >   
   > In researching the story of stolen kidneys for our series on transplant   
   > surgery, we had heard of cases in Delhi, Bombay, and Bangalore. Only in   
   > Bangalore was there said to be strong evidence. In January 1995, Police   
   > Chief D'Souza had acalled an international press conference to announce   
   > that he had uncovered a criminal ring that stole illitereate people's   
   > kidneys for sale to the Middle East.   
   >   
   > The world's press and the BBC#'s World Service carried the story. Within   
   > a week, another 80 people turned up at the police station to announce   
   > that they had had their kidneys stolen. Rumpour had it that government   
   > conversation of over $150,000 and a job for life were on offer. Soon the   
   > _Indian Express_ was reporting; 'Bangalore police have busted a massive   
   > racket in smuggling kidneys of nearly 1000 unsuspecting persons' and   
   > added 'prominent doctors were involved.'   
   >   
   > The man who started the whole thing was a labourer called Velu from Tamil   
   > Nadu. He said he had been working near his village for 85c a day when he   
   > was approached by two agents who promised him a job in Bangalore earning   
   > twice as much. When he arrived, they told him an easy way to earn money   
   > was to sell blood, and they took him to the Yellama Desappa hospital.he   
   > said that when he was giving blood, he became unconscious. When he woke   
   > up, he found a large bandage on his side. He claimed the nephrologist, a   
   > Dr Siddaraju, told him he had become dizzy from loss of blood and fallen   
   > out of a first-floor window and hurt his side. [first-floor is the one up   
   > the stairs from the ground floor] He was given 5000 rupees ($75) and told   
   > to go home. 3 months later he had a fight with his brother and was   
   > punched in the stomach.   
   >   
   > "I was in unbearable pain and went to a doctor who saw the mark and told   
   > me my kidney had been removed. I was amazed." He went back to demand   
   > "proper payment". He got no joy from the agents, nor from the doctors. A   
   > lawyer told him to go see D'Souza, who believed his story and decided to   
   > prosecute two doctors.   
   >   
   > We went to visit the man D'Souza called "the architect of the whole   
   > racket", Dr Siddaraju. Siddaraju was professor of nephrology at the   
   > Victoria public hospital and also supervised kidney transplants at the   
   > private Yellama Desappa hospital. As criminal mastermminds went,   
   > Siddaraju did not seem to be a very rich one. His small bungalow was   
   > dilapidated and he washed in a water tank round the back; his living room   
   > had cheap furntiure, a tv set, exposed wires everywhere, a lot of statues   
   > of Buddha, and signs saying "God Is Love" and "To Work Is Divine". A   
   > large cupboard, permanently lit with dozens of candles, served as a   
   > shrine. Siddaraju was a religious man who, we later heard, had set up a   
   > clinic for poor kidney patients. He appeared respectable,   
   > unsophisticated, and still stunned by what had happened to him.   
   >   
   > "At 11 o'clock at night, these police officers banged on my door. I   
   > assumed they'd come about an officer I'd operated on recently. But they   
   > said: 'Are you Siddaraju who does transplants? We have a case against   
   > you.' They refused to let me call anyone and snapped out my telephone   
   > wire and took me in my night shirt and bare feet - not even any slippers   
   > - to the police station. Is that the way you should treat a senior doctor   
   > in society? I was kept in a cell alone for 5 hours. I knew no reason why   
   > I was there."   
   >   
   > Siddaraju was later granted bail, but it was 24 hours before he heard he   
   > was accused of stealing kidneys, wrongful confinement and criminal   
   > conspiracy. By now, he was frightened. A lawyer friend advised him to   
   > become 'unavailable', so he 'disappeared' - to a friend's house - an act   
   > which the press made much of. It made him appear guilty and I asked him   
   > why he did it. "I knew what they could do to me. Practically everyone's   
   > afriad of the police in our country, I think." Siddaraju was suspended   
   > from the public hospital on half pay and the transplant work ceased   
   > completely. (He usually earned $900 a month.)   
   >   
   > We visited the prosecuting counsel in the teeming Bangalore civil court.   
   > His office was filled to the ceiling with yellowing files and he looked   
   > like Omar Sharif. he popped out every now and again to chew betel nut and   
   > returned with a red mouth. He completely believed his client Velu's   
   > story. He had not interviewed any other witnesses; he was overworked and   
   > had no phone at home. However, his story differed from his client's. His   
   > version was that Velu had been told by the doctors that they had needed   
   > so much blood from him that they had decided to take it from his side,   
   > hence the scar. Later, Velu's own version - that he was told he'd fallen   
   > from the first-floor window -started to look shaky when we visitied the   
   > hospital. The windows had long been barred.   
   >   
   > We met Velu out in his village. I asked why he hadn't realised for three   
   > months that the large mark on his side was a kidney scar when   
   > kidney-donating was quite common in his area. Had he never thought it odd   
   > that other people's scars were exactly like his own? He never noticed, he   
   > said.   
   >   
   > Dr Siddaraju claimed that Velu could not have been unaware he was going   
   > to give a kidney. Over 10 days, he would have undergone a battery of   
   > tests - urine tests, x-rays, having his blood cross-matched together with   
      
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