Dance bar owner booked for employing 4 minors

The Mumbai police crime branch (CB) has applied the stringent human trafficking for sexual exploitation charge against the owner of a dance bar in Goregaon (west) after a medical test of four out of the 35 bar dancers, arrested from the establishment, found them to be minors.

During questioning, it was learnt that the minor girls belonged to poor families and were hence forced to take up the job. As minors cannot be arrested and kept in police custody, they were sent to a women’s shelter home in Chembur by the Child Welfare Committee (CWC). Earlier, the crime branch had booked another dance bar owner under the same section after it was found that he had pushed minor girls to work in the bar.

The Social Service Branch (S.S. Branch) of CB led by deputy commissioner of police, enforcement, Pravinkumar Patil had raided Taquilla, the lounge, in Khana-Khazana restobar on the link road late on Sunday in which around 150 people were arrested. About 89 of them were customers. Another 35 of them were woman working as bar dancers and rest were staffers including the owner, identified as Rathikrushna Patnaik alias Sonu.

The women were booked under Section 294 for obscene acts and songs in public place but during a medical test four of the girls were found to be minors.

A source from SSB said, “We strongly suspect they are between 14 and 16 years of age.” Senior police inspector of Bangur nagar, Santosh Bhandare said, “We are conducting more tests to ascertain the exact age.”

The accused have been booked for trafficking for sexual exploitation under section 370 A (1) of the IPC and Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act.

A few months ago, a team led by SS Branch’s senior inspector Jagdev Kalapad raided Mini Mahal bar in Antop Hill area of Central Mumbai and rescued around 10 women, out of which four girls were underage.

“We have also applied sections of the Immoral traffic (prevention) Act, 1956 after finding out that girls were also pushed into sex trade,” said senior police inspector Vasant Patil of Antop Hill police station.