Investigators are verifying the veracity of the medical degree certificates of two doctors suspected to be linked to the Saroornagar kidney racket. While one of them secured medical degree from China, the other completed the course from Ukraine, the police found.

Though both claimed to have cleared the mandatory Foreign Medical Graduate Examination held by National Board of Examinations to practice as doctors here, the police are ascertaining facts about their contentions. Six special police teams have been sent to different places in the neighbouring States of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka and within Telangana, looking out for the mediators and masterminds of the kidney racket.

Based on the inputs from some witnesses, the Saroornagar police of Rachakonda Commissionerate surmised that the doctor, who is in his mid-30s with Ukraine medical degree, secured licence a couple of years ago to run a nine-bedded hospital. Police are verifying reports that this doctor leased out the hospital to others.

“This claim could be a plot to evade from the charges of illegal kidney transplantation surgeries carried out at the hospital,” a top police official overseeing investigation of the case said, seeking anonymity. The doctor with China medical degree is believed to have assisted the main doctors who had performed the surgeries.

The video footage of surveillance cameras inside and outside the hospital has become crucial for identification of the doctors who transplanted the kidneys. It is yet to be confirmed who were the urologists who performed the surgeries, the quantum of money that changed hands and the network of mediators who coordinated with the doctors, donors and the receivers.

Police stumbled upon leads to believe two of the mediators are from Bengaluru and some are from AP. These mediators brought the receivers from Karnataka to Hyderabad on the night of January 16. Based on the complaint of Deputy Medical and Health Officer Geetha, the police registered a case under Sections 18, 19A and 19B of the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act.

Investigators also invoked Section 118 of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhitha. They noted that as fresh evidence emerges in the case, more sections of law are likely to be added.