Navi Mumbai: The Anti-Human Trafficking Unit (AHTU) of the crime branch busted a prostitution racket at a lodge in Nerul and rescued four women after conducting a raid by sending a decoy customer on the night of March 6. Police arrested two men for allegedly working as pimps and accepting Rs 20,000 from a customer to provide women for prostitution at the lodge. The lodge manager was also arrested for allegedly allowing the two men to run the racket at his lodge.Pruthviraj Ghorpade, senior inspector of AHTU, said the arrested accused pimps were Mohammad Hanif Rajaf Byari, 40, who hailed from Karnataka and previously worked as a waiter at a ladies bar in Nerul, and his aide Anwar Alam Isak Sheikh, 35, who hailed from Bihar and resided in Belapur village. The arrested manager was identified as Rajesh Sadanand Dhawale, 37, who hailed from Pune and resided in Govandi.The four rescued women were aged 20-22 years. Two of them resided in Kharghar and the other two were from Koparkhairane.Inspector Ghorpade said, “We had received a tip-off that two men were providing women for prostitution by contacting customers. The duo was ferrying the women in auto-rickshaws to reach The Blissful Stay Lodging and Boarding in Sector 14, Nerul, where the customer was made to book a room for having sex with the prostitute, for which they charged Rs 20,000. Hence, on May 6 around 11.15 pm, a raid was conducted at the lodge after sending a decoy customer who was made to contact the pimps, and the prostitution racket was busted. From the accused pimp Anwar Shaikh, we recovered Rs 10,000 that was marked and given by the decoy customer to Shaikh for providing the woman for prostitution.”He added, “As technical evidence, we have seized the CCTV digital video recorder installed near the cash counter at the lodge and also the mobile phones of the three arrested accused. The arrested accused were produced before the Belapur court that has remanded them to police custody till May 11. The rescued women have been accommodated at a women’s shelter home in Mumbai.”
