Court update
20 April 2017, MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Wednesday sought a response from the state government after it heard a plea alleging police inaction in probing a prostitution racket in Lokhandwala.
The court directed the Advocate-General to appear before it on Thursday and explain what the state and the police had done in the case so far. It also asked why the state had not filed an appeal challenging the bail granted to four of the seven accused in the case.
The court was hearing a plea filed by advocates Rizwan Merchant and Aditya Pratap Singh on behalf of a victim. The plea said that a couple and their relatives, all residents of Lokhandwala, abducted minor girls and raised them until they hit puberty. Once that happened, these girls would be forced into the flesh trade.
The girls would be kept in a flat at Lokhandwala. The couple would also abuse them.
Last year, one of the girls, who had been abducted from Agra when she was seven-years-old, managed to escape.
Now 24-years-old, she approached the police and filed a complaint. Police raided the flat, rescued eight other victims and arrested the couple and five of their aides.
Four of them got bail soon after and the police has done little since.
The petitioner’s counsels told the court on Wednesday that the police’s “probe was compromised” and that it was “aiding the perpetrators.”
They sought that the probe be transferred to the CBI.