BJP leader among nine arrested for running online sex racket in Bhopal

The Bhopal police busted an online sex racket on Thursday. Among nine people arrested is a BJP leader whom the party later sacked.

Published on: May 19, 2017, 19:01:40 IST

Hindustan Times, Bhopal | By Neeraj Santoshi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

A BJP leader was among nine people arrested by the cyber cell of Madhya Pradesh police Thursday night for allegedly running an online sex racket from an upscale neighbourhood in the city.

Nine people including a BJP leader was arrested from an upscale Bhopal neighbourhood for allegedly running an online sex racket. (HT PHOTO)

Neeraj Shakya, BJP SC/ST Cell’s media in-charge for the state was arrested along with eight others from an apartment in Arera Colony from where a gang allegedly ran a website called Bhopalcallgirl.in.

On Friday, the BJP’s state unit president Nandkumar Singh Chauhan sacked Shakya from the party as it tried to control the fallout of the scandal.

The BJP leader also runs a business as sand supplier.

Police said six of those arrested in Thursday’s raid on an apartment in Arera Colony ran the racket while three were customers. Police also rescued four girls in the age group of 20 to 27 years from the apartment.

Superintendent of Police (state cyber cell) Shailendra Singh Chouhan told reporters that police mounted the raid after a tip-off that some people were running an online sex racket from an apartment in Bhopal’s Arera Colony area through a website.

The accused allegedly scoured job websites to target girls who desperately wanted jobs and had uploaded their resumes on the websites. Of the four girls rescued, two were from Maharashtra (Mumbai and Nagpur), one from Meghalaya and another from MP’s Panna district.

Chouhan said that the accused had put mobile numbers on the website. He said the police had put the website under surveillance for last three months during which they found that one of the phone numbers on the website was from Madhya Pradesh. Its location was eventually traced to the Arera Colony before police raided the apartment.

Police said two of the accused were tasked with searching for girls on job websites on which they had put their profiles and mobile numbers. Then the accused would call them and promise them jobs as hotel receptionists, call centres executives or beauticians in beauty parlours.

They would allegedly lure girls to Bhopal on the pretext of an interview while a customer posing as relationship manager or some senior representative of the company in which the girls had been promised a job.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Neeraj Santoshi
Neeraj Santoshi is the Chief of Bureau for Hindustan Times in Uttarakhand, where he leads the state reporting team while covering government, politics, environment, wildlife, Uttarakhand High Court, and issues shaping the Himalayan region. With more than two decades in journalism across conflict zones, he has covered politically sensitive regions and environmentally fragile landscapes, and focused on stories that combine public interest with in-depth storytelling. An alumnus of Pune University with a Master’s in Communication Studies, he has reported extensively from Jammu & Kashmir (2003-2010), Madhya Pradesh (2010 to 2018 ) and Uttarakhand (Since 2018), covering subjects ranging from insurgency, elections and governance to wildlife conservation, mining, climate change, agriculture, human rights and social justice. He has covered politics and legislative assemblies of both Jammu & Kashmir and Madhya Pradesh over more than a decade. Before taking over as Chief of Bureau in Uttarakhand, he served as Special Correspondent with Hindustan Times in Madhya Pradesh and earlier reported for both Hindustan Times and The Indian Express in Jammu & Kashmir, where he covered state politics, environment and insurgency-related developments. Over the years, his stories have focused on environmental degradation, wildlife, illegal mining, governance and the changing social fabric of Himalayan states and Central India. He is particularly interested in long-form explanatory journalism, and stories that explore the intersection of ecology, conservation, governance and society. Outside the newsroom, Neeraj enjoys reading widely on neuroscience, consciousness studies, Artificial Intelligence and quantum physics, with a special interest in Kashmiri Tantric Shaivist traditions. He is also passionate about wildlife, mountaineering and the Himalayas, interests that continue to inform his reporting and deepen his understanding of the region he covers.Read More

Home/Cities/Bhopal News/BJP Leader Among Nine Arrested For Running Online Sex Racket In Bhopal