Post date: Oct 06, 2012 5:31:23 PM
Police in Mumbai city of India's western Maharashtra state arrest at least 134 men and rescue 340 women and minors involved in prostitution.
MUMBAI, MAHARASHTRA, INDIA (OCTOBER 04, 2012) (ANI ) - Police in Mumbai city of India's western Maharashtra state arrested at least 134 men and rescued 340 women and minors involved in prostitution on Thursday (October 04).
Prostitution is still illegal in India, although it is a thriving underground industry.
Voluntary groups estimate that there are about 2 million female sex workers, most of them trafficked or forced into the work by poverty.Acting on the tip-off of their informers, the police reached the place and nabbed the human traffickers.
Krishna Prasad, Additional Commissioner of Police, Social Service Branch, Mumbai confirmed that 340 women and minors were rescued and detained.
"Acting on the tip-off of our informers that an illegal sex racket is underway in this area, then we raided this place. After raiding the place we have arrested about 134 men and 340 women," he said.
He expressed the possibility of women being brought from Bangladesh.
During the interrogations, police identified pimps and brothel-keepers.
They have charged them under the prohibition act and the Bombay police act.
The Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act (PITA) act is meant to combat trafficking of females as well as prostitution in the city.
Over 150,000 people are known to be trafficked within the region every year - mostly for sex work, but also for labour, forced marriages and as part of the organ trade, according to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) officials.
Human trafficking is one of the fastest growing transactional organised crimes in south Asia.
Traffickers often take advantage of impoverished communities, luring girls and young women and girls with promises of jobs as maids or nannies in wealthy households in the cities. But, activists say, the reality is very different.