Patna, Oct 3 (IANS): Four close friends in Patna used to sell blood to buy drugs, as part of long-running racket in district hospitals, police found out as three of them approached them after one of the youths died and revealed the scam.

According to the youths, a majority of youths addicted to drugs "sell their blood" to hospitals to fund their habit.

"These four youths were childhood friends and studied in the same school in a prominent school of Kadamkuan locality. During school days, they fell into drug addiction. They used to buy contrabands using pocket money. Once their family members learnt about them being drug addicts, they stopped giving them pocket money," Patrakar Nagar police station SHO Manorajan Bharti said.

"After they faced shortage of money, they started snatching mobile phones in various localities to buy contraband. During the snatching bid, they were arrested six months ago and served jail term. After being released on bail, they stopped mobile snatching," Bharti said.

"As per the statement of the three youths, they came in contact with an employee of a private hospital located in the Kankarbagh area of Patna. He told them to sell their blood in hospitals and earn Rs 1,000 per unit. As it was a risk free option for them to earn money, they started doing it on regular basis. While doing that, they came in contact with four other hospitals of Kankarbagh locality," Bharti said.

"The sale of blood and consumption of drugs turn fatal for one of the friends who died. After the demise, the other three became scared and so were their family members. They locked them in a room of their respective houses for more than three weeks and did not allow them to go outside. As a result, they somehow managed to come out of addiction," Bharti said.

"They have given the names of the hospitals where illegal purchase of blood is currently going on. The reports are being submitted to top officials of our department as well as the health department for further action against them," he said.