Hyderabad: The Hyderabad police arrested two more doctors belonging to the King George Hospital (KGH) in Andhra Pradesh’s Visakhapatnam in connection with their alleged links with Dr A. Namratha, the prime accused in the fake surrogacy racket at her Universal Srushti Fertility Centre at Secunderabad, police said.
According to Gopalpuram police station’s Inspector M Madhu Kumar, based on the information given by Dr Namratha during the interrogation, the police went to Visakhapatnam on Thursday and arrested the two doctors, Dr Vasupalli Ravi, head of anaesthesiology and Dr Usha Devi, associate professor in the gynaecology department.
Meanwhile, Dr Namratha’s five-day police custody ended on August 5. She was arrested on July 27.
The two arrested doctors were taken to Hyderabad and remanded to judicial custody on Thursday night, the inspector said.
Another doctor, Dr Vidyullatha, a paediatrician from KGH, was also arrested on August 4. She was found to be acting as a substitute for Dr Namratha. She was produced before the court on Saturday and was granted conditional bail, a police officer said.
A senior police officer familiar with the development said that the investigating authorities are examining the suspects’ bank accounts and other details. Meanwhile, he added that police have also recently arrested three women-Vijaya, Saroja, and Ratna-who allegedly acted as intermediaries in the case.
Preliminary investigations revealed that Ravi and Usha Devi, were college mates of Namrata and they all completed their MBBS in 1988 from the Andhra Medical College. Usha Devi provided obstetric care at Dr Namratha’s Srushti Centre, while Vidyullata is believed to have monitored the health condition of the babies, the officer cited above said.
Meanwhile, King George Hospital superintendent Dr I Vani said the hospital had no connection with the Universal Srushti Fertility Centre and its illegal activities.
“We have got to know about certain activities by a couple of doctors associated with KGH, but they possibly worked with the fertility centre in their individual capacity,” she said.
The superintendent said there had been no information from them after their arrest.
“We could not contact them over phones as they were switched off. We shall take legal action against them after receiving the investigation report from the police,” Vani added.