A special team of police dispatched from Kathmandu arrested the eight individuals from different parts of the country within a period of one month and paraded them before the media at Dhulikhel on Tuesday. [break]
The arrested have been identified as Puja Dahal aka Puna Thakuri and Krishna Bahadur Darji of Madanpur VDC-1, Nuwakot, Sachin Maharjan and Sanu Lal Maharjan of Lalitpur, Kumar Adhikari of Tanahun, Suman Shrestha and Rajan Darji of Kavrepalanchowk, informed Superintendent of Police Kamal Gharti.
Among the arrested, Sachin Maharjan was reportedly a former vice-president of the Free Students Union at Patan Campus.
Kavre police had also arrested two people -- Manoj Rawat and Prem Bahadur Bajagain -- on the charge of assisting in the kidney trade last month. SP Gharti also informed that they made the arrests on the basis of complaints filed by the victims. However he said that the kingpin of the kidney racket has yet to be arrested. “Sooner or later he will be arrested,” SP Gharti added.
According to police, over 150 people in Hokse VDC itself have sold their kidneys and five of them have died from it. SP Gharti further informed that the kidney racketeers are found to be selling a kidney for around 1 million rupees but the victim gets just 50,000 to 100,000 rupees.
The accused will be charged with human trafficking and could face 10 years in prison and 200,000 to 500,000 rupees fine if convicted.
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