Sex racket operating out of Vaishali hotel busted, manager held

Ghaziabad: Three persons were arrested on Wednesday after police busted a sex racket operating from Mahagun Sarovar Portico hotel in Vaishali's Sector 3. During the raid, 11 women were also rescued from the hotel.Among the accused are the hotel's manager, also the mastermind of the racket, Rahul Sharma (46), Sunil Singh (39), employed as a waiter, and Ankit Chauhan (19). The accused were booked under relevant sections of the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act, 1956. All accused were sent to judicial custody after being produced in court. An officer said four other persons—Sumit, Rahul, Nirdosh and Afzal—involved in the racket are absconding.ACP Indirapuram Abhishek Srivastava said he received a tip about the racket being run from the hotel. A police team from the Kaushambi police station raided the hotel around 2pm. "The 11 women who were rescued are all aged between 21 to 31 years and belong to Gujarat, Delhi, West Bengal and Odisha," he said. One packet of marijuana, some hashish and other objectionable items were also recovered from the possession of the accused. "During interrogation, the women said Rahul lured them to the hotel on the pretext of employment and forced them into sex work. He allegedly charged Rs 15,000–Rs 20,000 from customers and gave Rs 5,000 to each woman for a night," the ACP said. Some of the women have also said foreigners came to the hotel as sex workers, he added.A senior police officer said the manager revealed the names of people who are absconding. According to Rahul, he used to send photos of women to customers' WhatsApp numbers after which they would come to the hotel. On other occasions, the girl used to go to other hotels with the customers. All the rooms were booked online by the accused.Police found more than 500 photos of the women and more than 100 customers' contact numbers on the manager's phone. Senior executives from the hotel were not available for comment.