The Kerala Police has arrested 12 people, including two top organisers of the sensational ‘Kiss of love’ movement against moral policing, in State-wide raids over two days against the online sex racket with the cooperation of cyber authorities. Of those arrested, four were women and one of them was a minor girl from Bengaluru, the police said.
The racket had been operating through a Facebook page titled Kochu Sundarikal (little Beauties) by offering minor girls trafficked from other States, mainly Karnataka, and posting photographs and comments on them on the page. The Facebook authorities had blocked this page some time ago at the request of police’s cyber wing.
Those arrested for online flesh trading included Rahul Pasupalan and his wife and model Rasmi R Nair, who had become messiahs of individual freedom by organising the 'Kiss of love' movement which had spread through Kerala last year as a form of protest against moral policing. They were arrested from a hotel at Nedumbassery near Kochi.
Rasmi Nair has reportedly admitted to police that she has been in charge of the 'deals' with the 'clients' who contacted them over the phone while Rahul has taken a position that he knows only matters related to his wife and has no idea about the others.
Their six-year-old son who was with them during their arrest was currently under police's protection.
Rahul and Rasmi had shot to fame in November last year when they led 'Kiss of love', a programme of using the act of open kissing in order to protest against moral policing and alleged cultural fascism in the context of an incident that took place in Kozhikode in which a coffee shop was vandalised for allegedly allowing expression of love openly.
Police busted the online sex racket in Operation Big Daddy, a raid held at various centres in the State simultaneously coordinating different probe wings under a Superintendent of Police and overseen by S Sreejith, Inspector General of Police, Crime Branch. The raids that started on Tuesday morning went on till Wednesday morning, police said.
According to IGP Sreejith, Rahul and Rasmi were the main operators of the racket. The arrest of 12 people had been recorded in the case, he said. Six of them were arrested following a probe into the FB page, Kochu Sundarikal. Police are also examining whether the now-busted racket had any connection with those arrested earlier in connection with online flesh trade.
Police had trapped the racket, which included a Kasaragod-based gangster, Abdulkhader Afsal alias Akbar, by posing as 'clients' who contacted them through the Facebook page. Police, who had got information that the racket included even stars of TV serials, said some prominent persons could be held soon.
The racket had made an attempt to endanger personnel of the investigating team by ramming a car into them at the hotel premises in Nedumbassery, police said. This happened after those who reached there with two women came to know that the “clients” who had called them were actually police personnel.
Reports quoting police said that Rasmi Nair had through Akbar quoted Rs 80,000 to the “clients” as fee for a night and came down to Rs 50,000 after negotiations. When the “clients” said they wanted more girls, Akbar said this could be arranged and showed a photograph of his own wife, Mubeena, it is said.
The police team first trapped Mubeena and then made the others reach the Nedumbassery hotel using her phone, the police were quoted as saying. Rahul and Rasmi Nair were arrested as soon as they arrived at the hotel. Rahul was the administrator of the FB page, Kochu Sundarikal, and he had close links with the flesh trade racket, according to the police.
However, those close to Rahul and Rasmi refused to believe the police version. “The Kerala Police are experts at such 'investigations' and findings. Everybody remembers how they had concocted the sensational ISRO spy case by trapping two Maldivian women,” said a Kochi youth who was close to Rahul