Kalyani, Aug. 5: In a late night raid that was carried out in a house located in Gayeshpur of Nadia’s Kalyani, a team of police have arrested 16 girls allegedly for running and managing a brothel with the help the house owner. Police said that the accused women were running a sleaze racket behind the veil of a working women’s hostel. The house-owner, however, managed to flee. Two young men were arrested during the raid as they were found in compromising position with two girls.
The accused girls who are originally hailed from Nadia, North 24Parganas, Malda, Bihar, Calcutta and Delhi, were produced before additional chief judicial magistrate’s court today which released them on personal bond later in the evening.
An officer of Kalyani police station said that the accused were charged under different sections of Immoral Traffick (Prevention) Act, 1956 for running brothel, prostitution, procuring or inducing a person for prostitution, prostitution in vicinity of public place and for seducing or soliciting prostitution in public place.
Acting on complaints of sleazy activities lodged by some local residents of ward-18 in Gayeshpur Municipality, a team of Kalyani police led by sub divisional police officer Uttam Ghosh on last night conducted a raid at the house number F-12 owned by one Soumen Sil. Sil, however, went absconding since the raid.
Nadia superintendant Sheesh Ram Jhajharia said: “We had specific information that something was wrong there in the house and so this raid was conducted. It was a sleaze racket and the women staying there were involved in prostitution”
Local sources said that around six months ago owner of the house Soumen Sil provide accommodation to the girls as a hostel, who professionally work as dancers and singers at hotels and bars located on the Kalyani Expressway. “But with increasing number of visits of men in nights regularly we became suspicious. Gradually it became unhealthy for the area as they openly started sleazy activities even during the day time. After noticing this we appraised the police to intervene”, a local resident said.
An investigating officer said: “The allegations are prima facie true. The girls were running the brothel with the help of two touts, who are local youths but yet to be arrested”.