Mumbai: Police have rescued a 16-year-old girl from an alleged prostitution racket and arrested two persons identified as Saba Parveen Khan (32) and Mohammed Yusuf Shaikh (46) for allegedly luring the minor to a chawl room on the pretext of providing domestic work and subsequently forcing her into commercial sexual exploitation.
The accused were arrested after a transaction of Rs 10,000.
Police said the teenager was taken to the chawl room on multiple occasions before she was allegedly abducted and forced into commercial sexual exploitation. During post-rescue counselling by the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), the girl also disclosed alleged physical abuse at home and showed burn marks on her feet, which she claimed were inflicted by her mother during beatings over her studies. The teenager has been living with her mother after her parents’ divorce. Police have arrested the two accused under the Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act (PITA) and sent the victim to a rescue home. The accused allegedly threatened the girl with public humiliation and harm to her mother if she resisted. The case came to light after police received a tip-off and laid a trap using a decoy customer. Assistant police inspector Yogesh Madhukar Gaikwad is conducting further investigation under the supervision of senior police inspector Sachin Puranik.