Police raid Mumbai dance bar, find 16 women crammed in closet-like enclosure

Women, all between 20 and 25 years of age, were already faint from the lack of ventilation when they were rescued.

The police raided a dance bar that was masquerading as an orchestra bar in the early hours of Wednesday, and found 16 young women hidden in a crammed, closet-like space with no ventilation. Thirty men, including 10 staffers and 20 customers, were arrested from the bar. The police have also charged the owner with culpable homicide.

The women were faint from the lack of ventilation and had to be given water after they were found.(HT File Photo/Used for representational purpose)

They are now looking for the owner of the bar, known as Nityanand bar, as also Champion bar, on SV Road in Jogeshwari (west).

“They have an orchestra bar licence, but they were running a dance bar,” said Subhash Khanvilkar, senior inspector of Oshiwara police station.

Inspector Arjun Rajane, who led the raid, said: “When we went in and started searching, we saw a well-hidden cavity on the floor of the kitchen at the first level, which led down into a small room on the ground floor, and that led further into another even smaller 4x4 feet room. We went in, and found 16 women crammed tightly inside the room.”

“If the raid had gone on for three to four hours, they would have suffocated as the room had no other exit,” Rajane said, adding: “In case of a fire, that place is disastrous.”

The women, all between 20 and 25 years of age, were already faint from the lack of ventilation and had to be given water after they were found. They have been sent to a women’s shelter in the city.

The owner has been booked for attempt to commit culpable homicide and obscenity under the Indian Penal Code, as well as relevant sections of the Maharashtra Prohibition of Obscene Dance in Hotels, Restaurants and Bar Rooms and Protection of Dignity of Women Act, 2016.