Hem Raj Awasthi, 27, reached Pahargunj area in New Delhi a month ago with his two wives and one-and-a-half-year-old son from his first wife, Kalpana Ojha. Awasthi married Kalpana four years ago in Mahadevsthan VDC- 2, in Doti district. He moved to Kathmandu just nine months ago where he met another woman, Ritu Bhusal, and secretly married her. [break]
He and his second wife then plotted to call Kalpana to Kathmandu to remove and sell her kidney. After several failed attempts, they brought her to New Delhi. But their attempts failed after Kalpana on Tuesday contacted a local NGO run by Nepali social workers, who rescued her immediately.
Talking to Republica, Awasthi said, “My father is a respected priest in my village but my family was deep in loans,” adding, “I first wanted to sell my own kidney to get some money.” He said he owes between Rs 500,000 and Rs 700,000 in loans much of which he has taken from Ritu lately.
Awasthi is also a self-proclaimed dohari folk singer with two albums to his credit. He claimed that he has been a close political worker to senior Nepali Congress leader Sher Bahadur Deuba and Constituent Assembly member Gagan Thapa.
In his statement to Help Nepal Mission, a local NGO, Awasthi said he is now ready to keep both his wives with him.
A weeping Kalpana later confessed to Republica that she had been cheated and the duo took undue advantage of her innocence. “I did not know what removing kidney meant. Ritu said it is very simple and I should say ok.”
She also said they lied to her about their relationship. Ritu kept Kaplana at her sister´s house in Pahargunj and did not let her out for many days. “I want to go back home as we now have no money to even feed my son. I am ready to accept his second wife.”
Kalpana, however, added that she was aware that her husband could be charged with the dual crime of attempting to remove her kidney and polygamy. She said she wants to avoid filing a case for “the sake of family´s honor.”
A brawl between Awasthi and Ritu on late Monday night compelled Kalpana and Awasthi to leave the house. After spending a night at the Anand Vihar bus station with their infant son, Kalpana finally made the call to the Mission office. She was rescued late evening on Tuesday.
Ritu hails from Waharpur VDC in Kapilvastu and is now five months pregnant with Awasthi´s child. Republica learnt that she has worked in Bahrain for four years in a departmental store before moving to Kuwait as a house maid. She returned to Kathmandu a year ago where she found a job with a security agency. She quit after marrying Awasthi.
Awasthi has, however, accused the owners of the manpower company, which helped Kalpana to go to Middle East, of giving her the idea of kidney removal.
“It is either Devraj Dahal or his brother Ranka Prasad Dahal, the owners of Blue Sky and Nepal Trust manpower companies in Nepal, who have given Ritu this idea (of kidney removal),” Awasthi blamed.
Help Nepal Mission is now collaborating with the Nepal embassy in New Delhi to send the three back to Nepal. “We want to ensure that Kalpana is not bullied or mentally tortured to sell her kidney again,” Kabi Karki, the coordinator of the Mission said, adding, “We are trying to take help from the embassy.”
Karki also said that this is the first case of its nature that has come before the mission. “We have never come across such a case before.”
The case has posed a major question before the Indian authorities and Nepali social workers as to how many Nepalis visit India for kidney removals. The nexus could well be linked with a racket in Nepal, they suspect.
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