The seven policemen including an Assistant Sub Inspector of Police Ravinder Kumar Singh, were accused of accepting the bribe from Dr Upendra, a close aide of Kumar. While Singh has been arrested, the other six personnel are absconding. He was produced before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate A K Kuhar who remanded him to judicial custody till February 18.

Kumar, his brother Jeevan and many of his close associates in the illegal kidney transplant scam, managed to give the police the slip shortly before his clinic in Gurgaon on Delhi’s outskirts was raided on January 24.

Upendra, an MBBS from Ballabhgarh, was subsequently arrested from a flat in Gurgaon on January 24.

Facing probing questions by reporters, Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch) Satyendra Garg accepted that if the bribe money had not been taken, the racket would have been busted much earlier.

“But still we have busted an extortion racket,” Garg said. The Delhi police team led by Singh had raided the Gurgaon clinic and picked up Upendra on January 7 but let the latter go after the policemen were paid Rs 19.85 lakh, he said.

“We arrested Singh on Thursday after his interrogation at the Crime Branch. The six others involved in the case are absconding and efforts are on to nab them,” he said.