Mumbai sex racket: Victims say accused are their parents

A DNA test will ascertain the real parentage of the 10 women rescued in yet another raid yesterday

Poonam Thakur and Jitendra Thakur, two of the four arrested accused running the 20-year-old human trafficking racket out of Lokhandwala

The Crime Branch may have uncovered Mumbai's biggest human trafficking racket and arrested its ringleaders, but rescuing the victims is not going to be easy, as many of the women seem to believe that the accused are their parents.

Two days after they busted the sex racket at a posh Lokhandwala building, the cops raided two more residential complexes in the same locality – Prime Rose and Venus buildings — and found 10 more women that had been hidden away by the gang. But when the cops were shocked when all 10 women claimed they were not victims, but daughters of the accused.

Flashback
On Thursday, mid-day had highlighted how Crime Branch Unit IX busted the racket after they were tipped off by one of the victims who had managed to escape. They raided four flats in the building Kamdhenu Apartments in Lokhandwala, where they had also found 10-odd women being held.

Nine out of the 10 women were found hidden away in the Prime Rose building in Lokhandwala

At that time too, the women claimed they were the relatives of the accused, so the police had to let them go. The police also arrested the main accused — brothers Jitendra Thakur (37) and Vimal Thakur (47) and, the women operatives, Anju Thakur (43) and Poonam Thakur (45).

According to the escaped victim, the men would go hunting all over the country for young girls to trap, while the women would run the sex racket here in Mumbai. Anju and Poonam would pose as the victims’ mothers and then pimp them out at bars and other places.

Trapped young
According to sources from Crime Branch Unit IX, the gang allegedly targeted girls at a very young age, between 7 to 10 years of age. These girls hailed from financially struggling families and would be lured to Mumbai with the promise of a better life and education.

Now, many of them are in their 20s, but after so many years, they do not remember details of their parents or hometown.

DNA test
For now, the Crime Branch has custody of the 10 women they found in yesterday’s raid. These women will now be put through a DNA test to determine their real parentage.

"We are first trying figure out who are the real parents of the girls who were found at the Lokhandwala flats. They are all claiming the arrested accused are their parents.

So, we are going to a DNA test to verify their claims. We will send their blood sample to Kalina Forensic Laboratory. We have also started raids at bars and other spots across the city where the racket operated," said an officer from the Crime Branch.

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