KANPUR, April 4 -- The investigation into Kanpur's illegal organ trade has taken a dark turn as police reveal that the man involved in 40 to 50 kidney transplants was not a qualified doctor, but an operating theatre (OT) technician. The revelation comes alongside new evidence suggesting the racket has resulted in at least one patient's death. The two OT technicians who identified him to the police had themselves assisted in at least one of those procedures. And an audio recording retrieved from the mobile phone of arrested broker, Shivam Aggarwal, suggests that at least one woman who underwent an illegal kidney transplant at a Kanpur hospital died subsequently at a hospital in Delhi. The police believe the racket may have claimed lives, said officials. DCP (west) SM Qasim Abidi said two OT technicians, Kuldeep Singh Raghav and Rajesh Kumar, arrested on Thursday, told police that a man they knew as Dr Mudassar Ali Siddiqui from Delhi had performed the transplant surgeries. When police travelled to Siddiqui's home in Uttam Nagar, Delhi, he was not there. His wife told them he was not a doctor, but an OT technician. Siddiqui is now believed to have been involved in at least 40 to 50 kidney transplant surgeries conducted through the racket. He remains absconding. Kuldeep and Rajesh told police they had attended at least one transplant surgery conducted alongside railway tracks in Kanpur. Police put them in a vehicle and drove through the city's railway-side localities through the night, asking them to identify the hospitals where the procedures had taken place. The exercise led them to Medilife Hospital in Masawanpur. Both men identified it as the site of one transplant. The hospital was found to be operating without registration and is allegedly believed to have been set up specifically to facilitate such surgeries. It has since been sealed while its owners remain at large. Officials said the owners were involved in the racket more deeply than initially appeared, and raids to trace them have been intensified. The purported audio recording recovered from Aggarwal's phone during forensic examination has opened what may be the most serious dimension of the investigation yet. In the conversation, Aggarwal asks how a woman died. The other person purportedly explains that her creatinine levels had dropped critically after the transplant, leading to complications, after which she was admitted to Max Hospital in Delhi where she passed away. The transplant had allegedly been carried out at a Kanpur hospital and her condition had continued to worsen after the procedure. The conversation indicates the death occurred in November or December 2025. Police are now working to identify the woman and reach her family. "This is the first important evidence to come to light that people in fact lost their lives. The police will be seeking remand of Shivam Aggarwal for questioning specifically in this case," said an official. The remand, officials said, would allow investigators to reconstruct the chain of events around the woman's death, who performed the surgery, which hospital it took place in, and whether the family was ever told the truth about what happened to her. Meanwhile, the noose has also tightened around Dr Rohit, who investigators believe, is the most pivotal figure, still at large. According to Aggarwal's disclosures, Rohit coordinated the surgical teams flown in for each procedure, including surgeons, anaesthetists and nursing staff whose identities were known only to him. Police reached his residence in Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, but he had already fled. With an unregistered hospital, an OT technician performing surgeries, no medical records maintained, and now a potential death linked to the racket, the investigation has moved beyond the original arrests. Police said the full scale of what took place in Kanpur's private hospitals over the past five years is still being established....