The Lucknow police on Tuesday raided a guest house in the posh Gomtinagar locality of the state capital and claimed to have busted a highprofile sex racket. As many as eight persons, including three girls, have been arrested.
Acting on a tip-off, the police conducted an undercover operation by sending one of its personnel to the area. “The police officer posed as a customer. After the deal was struck, we sent a team to the guest house and arrested some of the people who are involved in the racket,” Lucknow SSP Yashasvi Yadav said.
The arrested people include Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader M.P. Singh, manager of a private institute Anurag Singh, three customers and three girls.
The preliminary investigation has revealed that the posh bungalow in which the racket was operating belongs to a senior official of the Allahabad Development Authority and was taken on a monthly rent of 1 lakh by M.P. Singh.
bungalow has eight rooms and all facilities were provided in it. Three luxury cars and other items were recovered from the building,” Yadav said.
The arrested girls belong to Ghaziabad, J&K and Delhi. The police said that the racket reached out to customers through a website.
A police officer, who is part of the investigation team, told MAIL TODAY that more high-profile names are expected to surface during the probe as the police have already stumbled upon some vital facts after scanning the mobile phones seized from the suspects.
Sources in the police said that customers visited the website for booking and the girls were sent to different parts of the country. The website contained profiles of over 150 girls along with the “service rates”.
“Once the deal was struck, the customer was asked to credit the amount to a bank account. The website also displayed air fares and rents for luxury cars that the customers will have to pay,” a source said. The guest house was only an “outlet” of the “white collar racket” as services were provided from that building in an attempt to propagate the business, said a police officer on condition of anonymity.
“The police officer who was sent for the undercover operation struck a deal for `6,000 for two hours. After receiving the tip-off from him, we raided the guest house,” Deputy Superintendent of Police Dinesh Puri said.
As the police entered the guest house premises, guards and others present there clashed with them, injuring a few personnel.
“One of the luxury cars belonging to MP Singh flashed a BSP flag while the Honda city belongs to Anurag Singh. Singh tried to flaunt that he is wellconnected. Some more high-profile people will be exposed during the course of the investigation,” Puri said.
