Pune: In a first of its kind action, the Crime Branch of Pune city police busted a call centre from where they claimed to connect customers with agents of prostitution rackets. They used to send girls photos on WhatsApp.
Sleuths from the social security cell (SSC) received a tip-off about the call centre while investigating a high profile sex racket case, wherein two women from Russia and Uzbekistan were held at a five-star hotel on Ahmednagar highway.
Assistant Police inspector Sheetal Bhalekar and police constable Satish Dhole had received information about the call centre, which was being operated from a building in
Vadgaonsheri.
Accordingly, a team, led by Senior Police Inspector Sanjay Patil raided the call centre on Friday and arrested three persons, and recovered 13 mobile phones from them. The accused persons had put up advertisements on different websites for
escort services in Pune.
The arrested persons are Shrikant Kalidas Tuljapure (27), Sagar Swaminath Ambade (24), both from Solapur, and Santoshni Kailaschandra Sahu (26) of Vadgaonsheri.
Police said that the kingpin of the racket, Ajay alias Rudramuni Shrishailya Hiremath of Gulbarga, Karnataka, and two agents Ganesh and Pratap, are on the run.
An FIR has been registered against the accused with Chandan Nagar police station.
