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Journalism of Courage
PUNE, Dec 4: Three members of a racket, who admittedly “sent young girls to the Gulf to fulfill the needs of the rich people," were arrested in a swoop down at a hotel near Pune Railway Station on Friday. Six girls from Andhra Pradesh were rescued during the raid. Interestingly, the racket was exposed by three brothel keepers operating in the Budhwar Peth red light area.
A Faraskhana police team led by Sub-Inspector Rekha Salunke carried out the raid at the instance of a tip off by Sheru Kamble, the Pune unit president of Kranti Sena – an organisation for the welfare of the prostitutes. They arrested Najma Shaikh Ahmed (35) from Bangalore, Abdul Hafiz Shaikh (35) from Raigad and Shabana Begum Mohammed Shaikh (40) from Hyderabad. The rescued girls, between 19 and 21 years, told investigators they were brought to Pune after being promised to provide jobs as maid servants with lucrative salaries in the Gulf.
During interrogation, the trio admitted, "We have done it twice earlier. But this time, we were trying to `sell’ the girls in Pune,” they were heard telling the sleuths.
Recalls Sheru Kamble, “The three brothel keepers came to my house around 8.30 a.m. saying that a woman had approached them with an offer to supply six girls for the trade. I went to their house and met the woman. She said she would supply each of the girls at Rs 25,000 after I identified myself as the sponsor,” he said.
After promising to “strike the deal” in front of the police, Sheru produced the woman in front of Sub Inspector Salunke at the nearby Shukrwar Peth police chowki. Salunke, asked Sheru to accompany the woman to the hotel near Pune Railway Station while she made the arrangements to conduct the raid, inspector in-charge of Faraskhana police station Madhukar Mote said.
Sheru and his colleagues corporator Datta Sagare, Suresh Kamble, Rajendra Pawar, Santosh Sinnarkar, Rajesh Kalimani and Shankar Kamble went to the hotel and negotiated with the racketeers till the police reached there.
The hotel staff said Abdul Shaikh and a woman had booked room numbers 4 and 6 last afternoon. Abdul, who named himself as Hanif Shaikh from Hyderabad, claimed he was a businessman on a two-day tour of Pune. They were joined by a woman and six girls in the night, the hotel staff said.
