NEW DELHI: Pune Police on Thursday arrested Dr Ajay Taware, former medical superintendent of Sassoon General Hospital, in connection with an alleged kidney transplant racket at a leading private hospital. Dr Taware is already lodged in Yerwada Central Jail over a separate case involving tampering with blood samples of a 17-year-old boy accused in last year’s Porsche crash that killed two people in Pune’s Kalyani Nagar. The city’s crime branch has now taken him into custody for his alleged role in a 2022 organ transplant case at Ruby Hall Clinic. “He has been taken into custody and will be produced before the court today,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime), Nikhil Pingale. At the time of the incident, Dr Taware headed the Regional Authorisation Committee responsible for approving kidney transplants. In May 2022, police registered a case against 15 people, including the managing trustee and employees of Ruby Hall Clinic, following allegations of malpractice during a transplant conducted in March that year. According to investigators, a woman from Kolhapur was promised Rs 15 lakh to falsely pose as the wife of a male kidney recipient. She donated her kidney to a young woman, while the young woman’s mother donated hers to the man—constituting an illegal paired exchange. The fraud came to light days later when the woman revealed her real identity after a monetary dispute.