More than 60 illegal hookah bars and palours are operating in the Goregaon-Malad belt and with the zonal police refusing to play spoilsport, prostitution rackets are also on the rise in the area.
According to a Times of India report, the social service (SS) branch of the Mumbai crime branch recently rescued a 24-year-old Russian national and a 16-year-old girl from sex rackets in separate raids.
In both the cases, the SS Branch conducted raids after being goaded by their informants and decoy customers.
The first case took place in a posh hotel in Malad (West). An undercover agent established the Russian national was into flesh trade. A team led by Ravindra Gidde, senior inspector (SS branch), and inspector Pravin Kadam arrested the pimp under relevant sections of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act and rescued her. She had come here on a tourist visa. She has been sent to a shelter home and will be allowed to return home.
In the second case, an SS team arrest a pimp and rescued the girl in Oshiwara. The police said the girl, who is from Maharashtra, got enmeshed in the flesh trade owing to her family’s poor financial conditions. Her parents constantly fights over domestic issues, said a police officer. She has been sent to a shelter home.
According to an IndiaNewsNet.IN SURVEY, there are over 600 illegal hookah palours in suburban Mumbai – both in the western and eastern suburbs, which are doing brisk business and even openly advertising the same on Facebook, Twitter, Google and other similar social media platforms, says Editor – Investigations, Flynn Remedios.
We contact Bangur Nagar and Malad police stations for their comments. While Sr Inspector of Malad police station Sudhir Mahadik did not even respond to our messages and calls, Sr Inspector of Bangur Nagar police station Santosh Bhandari refused to comment on the issue. He however agreed that hookah bars and palours are operating in his area and the police are trying to rein them in.
DCP zone XI Vikram Deshmane did not respond to our SMS message seeking a comment on the menace of illegal hookah bars in the area.
Several Ukrainian women are working as high-class call girls in the Goregaon-Malad belt and operating from hookah bars and hookah palours in the area, informed our source, also claiming that he has informed and complained to the Malad, Bangur Nagar and Malwani police stations, but no action has been taken.
