By Gurmukh Singh

Amit Kumar

Brampton (Canada) As television channels splashed the news about the arrest of Amit Kumar, the alleged kingpin of India's kidney transplant scam, his wife and two sons reportedly slipped out of their house in Brampton.

Poonam Ameet and the two young boys have not been seen outside their house since the kidney scam broke. Amit Kumar, who had been on the run since Jan 24 after Indian police raided his properties near New Delhi and accused him of 600 illegal kidney transplants, was arrested Thursday in Nepal.When this IANS correspondent reached their upscale home at 14 Pali Drive Thursday evening, a woman neighbour said Amit Kumar's wife "might have gone out with her sons".

 

The garage driveway was cleared of snow and there seemed to be fresh tyre marks on it, confirming movement outside the house for the first time in two weeks.It was not known whether she had decided to move out after hearing about the arrest of her husband and no one could confirm where they had gone.

 

A man, claiming to represent a major Canadian daily from Toronto and waiting in a car in front of the house, also confirmed that Kumar's wife and sons left the place at noon. Asked whether he or anyone else saw them going out, he said no media person was around when they slipped out. He said he was keeping watch to see whether they would return. There was no response to the knock at the door and there was no movement inside the house.Outside the door, one could see some old fliers and a few marks on the snow pile.Amit Kumar's phone number remained disconnected "at the customer's request".

 

Asked whether they knew about the arrest of their infamous neighbour, the woman neighbour said: "Yes, we know he has been arrested. Yes, it is there in the news."She said her family has been living in this neighbourhood for five years and knew the Kumar family ever since they bought this house a year ago. Asked whether they had clues about Amit Kumar's illegal trade in kidneys, she said: "No, we never knew it. And we have yet to get over it."

 

Arrested in Nepal, Kumar will be extradited to India at the earliest opportunity, Minister of State for Home, Sri Prakash Jaiswal said Friday.

 

"We have very good relations with our neighbour Nepal. These relations go back to centuries. It will not be a problem in extraditing Dr. Amit Kumar," Jaiswal said.

 

A formal request for extradition has already been sent through the requisite official channel, officials said, adding that it might take up to a fortnight for the process to be completed.

India and Nepal had initialled a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty and Extradition Treaty in January 2005.

 

Asked how Kumar alias Santosh Rameshwar Raut, arrested from a hotel on the India-Nepal border, managed to cross over to Nepal, Jaiswal said: "The Indo-Nepal border is porous as we all know. He made use of this. But this does not mean the present condition should continue. We will have to take some measures to control crossing of the border."

 

Officials admitted that the Indian government's optimism on his extradition may be misplaced as the Nepal government might decide to try him for violating Nepalese laws and then hand him over to India.

— IANS