‘We never thought our plush neighbours were traffickers’

NEW DELHI: In police records, Afaq Hussain and his wife Saira Begum ran one of Delhi’s biggest prostitution rackets and have trafficked more than 5,000 girls, mostly

NEW DELHI: In police records, Afaq Hussain and his wife Saira Begum ran one of Delhi’s biggest prostitution rackets and have trafficked more than 5,000 girls, mostly minors from various parts of the country.

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For Hussain’s oblivious neighbours, they were just ordinary citizens.

Hussain and Begum, who have been booked under Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, were known as a kind couple. They often initiated conversation with their neighbours and invited them to their house on festivals. At their first floor flat in southeast Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh, the couple posed as builders, with construction projects in Bangalore.

Last week, the news of their arrest shocked the neighbourhood. The couple had been living in a plush 4BHK flat, spread over 250 square yards that was guarded with facilities like digital lock security system equipped with cameras.

According to neighbours, the couple left their home at 10am and returned late in the evening. A neighbour said that Saira Begum had recently invited her house.

“In January, she came to our house and invited our family to attend a party at their farm house in Jaitpur. It was their daughter’s birthday,” said a neighbour.

Neighbours often spotted the couple driving expensive luxury cars.

“Recently Afaq’s Toyota Fortuner was hit by a youngster on a bike. Surprisingly, he didn’t get angry at all and handled the situation very calmly,” said Mohammed Iqbal, a resident in the locality.

The couple’s neighbours in Jaitpur — where they owned a farmhouse — however said that they always knew that they were involved in some ‘shady dealings’.

“I have seen cars with red beacons parked outside their farmhouse. They threw lavish parties. We knew Begum had been arrested earlier. We suspected that they brought girls over to their place for the parties,” a neighbour said.