Hindustan Times (Noida)

Prostituti­on racket busted, five persons held

- Tanmayee Tyagi tanmayee.tyagi@htlive.com

They would fix a time and place to meet with prospectiv­e customers and then take them in a car and either rob them of valuables or blackmail them. RAJESH S, DCP, Zone 1

NOIDA: Five persons, including a couple and three women, were arrested on Tuesday for allegedly running a prostituti­on ring on the pretext of providing escort services and then robbing their customers.

According to police officials, the suspects would advertise escort service facility online and once they got in contact with clients, they chatted with them to provide more services for which the rates varied.

“They would fix a time and place to meet with prospectiv­e clients. Then they would take the customers in a car and either used violence to rob them or blackmail to extort money from them,” said Rajesh S, deputy commission­er of police, zone 1.

The officials said that the gang was being run by a 27-year-old Assam-based woman and her 27-year-old husband from Uttar Pradesh. Three more women aged 35, 28 and 26 years were also arrested along with them. The couple was currently living in Delhi, police said.

“After initiating contact with clients, the suspects would share photos of women who were available for various services and once the clients were lured, they would rob them. The operation came to the fore when one such client approached us to file a complaint against the gang. They were traced using technical surveillan­ce and arrested today from near a park in Sector 54,” said the DCP.

The police officials said that they have recovered multiple sets of social media chats of the suspects which also showed connection­s with other similar gangs. The suspects had been operating for the past two years in the Delhi-ncr and their meeting places with prospectiv­e clients included malls and markets, police said.

Police also recovered a car from the suspects, along with several mobile phones, packets of contracept­ives and Rs 3,500 that was stolen from the complainan­t. They were booked at Sector 24 police station under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code.

Police are now identifyin­g other members of the gang and the cases in which they might be involved. Complainan­ts take time coming forward due to social stigma, said police.

The five suspects were produced before a magistrate and later sent to jail.

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