The Kerala Police has learned that the online sex racket, of which Kiss of love organisers Rahul Pasupalan and wife Rasmi R Nair were lead operators, have been smuggling women for flesh trade to countries in the Arabian Gulf. The racket had smuggled five women to Gulf countries including Bahrain recently.

A gang led by Abdulkhader Afsal alias Akbar, a Kasaragod-based gangster and one of the chief operators of the online sex racket busted by the cops last week, had smuggled out the five women to Bahrain, Qatar and Dubai through the Kochi International Airport at Nedumbassery two months ago, police sources said.

The police investigating the online sex racket involving Rahul, Rasmi and others have found that Akbar had been in a joint operation with Joyce, son of Joshi Joseph, kingpin of the racket, smuggling out women to the Gulf for pushing into flesh trade for the past two years. The dispatch of five women was the last such operation of the racket, sources said.

The women were inducted into the sex racket by Akbar after detailed interviews, police have learned. They were taken to the Gulf on three-month visit visas. It is said that Akbar had interviewed many more women last week for taking abroad. These women were said to have been handed over to sex rackets run by gangs in which even Arabs were members.

The police are now trying to find out whether there were minor girls among those who were trafficked to the Gulf.

The details of this human trafficking had come out during the interrogation of Joshi Joseph alias Achayan who was arrested the other day. Akbar was arrested on November 17 from Nedumbassery near Kochi along with Rahul and Rasmi.

Police are now trying to learn whether the women trafficked by the gang to the Gulf had included minor girls. One of the four women held along with Akbar and others in the Kerala Police’s Operation Big Daddy against the sex mafia last week was a minor girl, trafficked from Bangalore.

Meanwhile, reports quoting a young woman, who had participated in the Kiss of love programme of November, 2014 organized by Rahul Pasupalan, Rasmi and others to protest against moral policing and cultural fascism, said that Rahul had demanded “compromises” from participants of the protest for ensuring its success.

According to reports, the woman said that Rahul and Rasmi had asked her and others to “cooperate” without inhibition with other participants of Kiss of love. The investigation team has reportedly instructed the young woman, who had handed over crucial information to them on the sex racket case, to record her statement before a magistrate.