An Indian woman has accused her husband of stealing one of her kidneys and selling it on the black market, after her family failed to pay a dowry.
Rita Sarkar, 28, claims her husband took advantage of her when she suffered appendicitis two years ago, and had the kidney removed during the operation to treat it.
Mrs Sarkar says she knew nothing of her husband’s crime until a few months ago, when she was hospitalised and doctors found that she was missing her right kidney.
According to The Hindustan Times, West Bengal police have arrested the woman’s husband and brother-in-law /
According to the complainant by the woman, Rita Sarkar, her husband of 12 years and her in-laws tortured her often for dowry and took advantage of her appendicitis to steal a kidney from her.
“Around two years ago, I began suffering from acute stomach ache. My husband took me to a private nursing home in Kolkata, where he and the medical staff told me that I would be fine after removing my inflamed appendix through surgery,” she said.
But her pain persisted, or rather intensified, after the operation.
“My husband warned me not to disclose the surgery in Kolkata to anyone. I begged him to take me to a doctor to treat the pain, but he ignored me.”
Rita was allegedly taken to North Bengal Medical College and Hospital by relatives from her parents’ side around three months ago and doctors found that her right kidney was missing.
Shocked, she sought a second opinion at a nursing home in Malda and learnt that one of her kidneys was indeed not there.
“I then understood why my husband implored me to keep quiet about the surgery. He sold my kidney because my family couldn’t meet his demand for dowry,” she alleged.
Rita then filed a complaint at Farakka police station in northern Bengal, the native place of her parents, against husband Biswajit Sarkar, a cloth merchant from Lalgola in Murshidabad district, his brother Shyamal and her mother-in-law, Bularani, who is on the run.
The husband and his brother were arrested on Monday, inspector Udayshankar Roy said.
The men allegedly confessed that the kidney was sold to a businessman in Chhattisgarh. “Murshidabad police will raid the Kolkata hospital where the surgery was conducted,” said a senior police officer who didn’t want to be identified.
