Mumbai doctors charged over India kidney racket
The Indian police have charged five doctors for offences related to illegal human kidney trading.
Police officials said the doctors were involved in an illegal organ harvesting racket at the Hiranandani Hospital in the western city of Mumbai.
The police investigated the hospital after reports emerged that poor people, mostly from villages, were being paid to sell their kidneys.
A similar racket was busted in June in a prominent hospital in Delhi.
The deputy police commissioner of Mumbai, Ashok Dudhe, said the doctors were charged because "they did not follow the procedures laid out".
"Two days ago, we got the report from the director for health services for Mumbai. In this report, there were charges made against these doctors such as negligence under the 1994 Transplantation of Human Organs Act," news agency Reuters quoted Mr Dudhe as saying.
He added that 14 people, including a donor, a recipient and an agent, had been arrested so far.
Police started investigating the hospital after a member of the staff informed them about suspicious cases of kidney transplants.
Only family members can donate organs to a patient in India and any commercial trade is illegal.
But a chronic shortage of transplant organs is fuelling a lucrative black market trade in body parts across India.