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The Ludhiana police Saturday claimed to have busted an inter-state prostitution racket with the arrest of fourteen persons, including ten women. Police said that the woman, who was the alleged kingpin of the racket and used to force needy girls into prostitution, was also arrested.
Ludhiana ADCP-4, Rupinder Kaur Sran, who led the operation early Saturday morning, said that the women from different states who had lost their jobs due to lockdown, were pushed into prostitution.
“These women belong to as far as Nepal, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Chandigarh and Amritsar (in Punjab) and further investigations are on to unearth the complete area of their operations,” said Sran.
We have also recovered restricted drugs Etizolam and Escitalopram Oxalate tablets which are allowed only on prescription and the accused are being interrogated to ascertain the source of their supply, the ADCP added.
Initial investigations have also revealed the names of similar operatives in other cities with whom the main accused and the women were in touch to widen their net, Sran said adding all these angles were being probed and more arrests were likely.
Seven mobile phones, 28 packets of condoms, besides Rs 3,630 and two liquor bottles have also been seized from the spot. An FIR under the sections 3, 4 and 5 of the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act 1956 was registered at Tibba police station.
Sran said that a tip-off was received about flesh trade activity being run by the accused. The main accused has been identified as Manjit Kaur alias Pammi, resident of street number 10 New Subhash Nagar and she was also arrested in a similar case lodged at Jodhewal Basti police station in 2018. Three men were also arrested from the house during the raid who had come there as customers.
She was on bail now and was running the illegal activity from her house by luring young needy girls into prostitution. Modus operandi was to engage needy women and to target women out of work due to Covid lockdown and force them into prostitution. Of those arrested, one girl from Delhi was lured into the trade because she could not repay the loan she had taken from a relative to make ends meet during Covid, while another girl was picked up by the main accused from a city gurdwara she was visiting at the pretext of a job offer. These girls back home used to tell their family members that they were working in a factory or performing in marriage parties, Sran added.
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