The Special Task Force of Crime Branch arrested a couple allegedly involved in running a sex racket in Bhubaneswar and rescued six Bangladeshi women on Tuesday.
The cops arrested Sheikh Ibrahim and his wife Anjali aka ‘Didi’ from Danagohiri under the Pipili police station as the couple was allegedly the mastermind of the sex racket that was running from a rented accommodation at Rath Road in Bhubaneswar’s Old Town area.
Later in the day, the Commissionerate police raided a house located in the Linagaraj police station area and rescued the Bangladeshi women.
An official said the house owner was kept in dark about the identity of the Bangladeshi women when Ibrahim and Anjali took his house on rent. The couple was said to have brought the Bangladeshi women to Bhubaneswar on the basis of forged Aadhaar cards.
The official said the Bangladeshi women were being questioned at an undisclosed location to elicit further details about the flesh trade.
Another official on condition of anonymity said that after a Bangladeshi sex worker levelled rape allegation against a hotel owner, the involvement of the Pipili couple in trafficking and running sex racket came to the fore. Since then, the couple had been under the vigil of Crime Branch, the official added.