Mumbai: The Mumbai police on Saturday busted a major racket involving the kidnapping of minor girls and bringing them up with an intention to push them into prostitution and beer bars.
The Mumbai Crime Branch arrested four persons including an advocate and his wife who used to work in a beer bar, for kidnapping two minor girls on different occasions. The couple had planned to raise the girls who were five-year-old when they were kidnapped in 2013 and force them into prostitution and beer bars.
The arrested accused have been identified as Sanjay Bhoir (51) who is an advocate, his wife Ruby (34), and their accomplices Kishore Thakur (50) and Salman Khan (21). Ruby used to work for a beer bar previously while Thakur claims he is a real estate agent and Khan used to work in a mobile shop.
The Mumbai Crime Branch stumbled upon this racket while working on several cases of kids being kidnapped from pavements across the city for the purpose of pushing them into begging rackets.
As directed by the couple, Thakur and Khan had carried out two kidnappings in April 2013 and November 2013. The duo were allegedly paid Rs 80,000 for the first kidnapping in which they kidnapped a five-year-old girl from near Inorbit mall in Vashi and Rs 1 lakh for the second kidnapping in which they kidnapped another five-year-old from Nerul.
Mumbai Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria said that Thakur and Khan admitted that they would keep an eye on the girls and lure them by offering them ice cream. “They would then pick up the girls and take them to their van in which they would keep new clothes and chocolates for them. They would then take the girls home, bathe and dress them, and hand them over to the couple,” Maria said.
According to police sources, the couple had planned to raise both the girls and later force them to work in brothels and beer bars. The couple did not have their own children, as they were unable to conceive. The couple kept the two girls in a rented house in Uran however, it is uncertain if the girls were ill-treated in any way. Police sources said that they will send the girls for medical test in order to confirm the same.
Maria said that the girls have been reunited with their families following the arrest of the four accused from Uran on Saturday evening. Missing complaints of the two girls, who are now seven-year-olds, had been registered with the Vashi and Nerul police stations in 2013.
