Ghanaian Woman held as cops bust sex racket in India

Police say arrested woman resorted to prostitution to pay for legal expenses in visa tampering case filed against her

The Social Security Cell (SSC) of the city police Crime Branch has arrested a foreign national for her involvement in a sex racket. The police said the arrested person was a 32-year-old from Ghana who had come on tourist visa to India nine months ago.

It was the fourth arrest of a woman from a foreign country for involvement in prostitution in the city. Along with the woman from Ghana, another woman was also arrested in the police action on Monday. The police said the two were running a prostitution racket from an apartment on Nagar Road. The police identified the women as Shaila Na Dedei Aryi from Ghana and Vimannagar resident Margaret Daniel Anthony (29), both of whom were currently residing in Hindustan Apartment in Yerawada on Nagar Road.

Margaret allegedly ran a sex racket under the guise of working as personal masseuse. Margaret was introduced to Shaila through a common contact and suggested she work with her. Both then rented a flat in Yerwada for the purpose. A case was registered against the two at the Yerawada police station under relevant sections of the Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act .

Shaila is the first person from Africa to be arrested for involvement in prostitution in the city. Acting on a tip-off received by Head Constable Ashok Takalkar, a team led Senior Police Inspector Bhanupratap Barge of the SSC raided the flat and nabbed the two women.

Asked about the increasing number of prostitution cases involving foreigners on tourist visas, Barge said, "Tourist visas are easily granted. Besides this, there are no restrictions on the movement of a person travelling on this kind of visa. So we suspect that these factors were responsible for the involvement of four arrested foreign women so far."

According to the police, the woman from Ghana was earlier arrested by the Sahar Airport police for tampering with the date on her visa. The police said since then Shaila was looking for a job in India which would allow her to pay her legal expenses to fight the case. They said she chose prostitution to raise the money. Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch) Anant Shinde, DCP (Crime) Rajesh Bansode and ACP (Crime I) Vinod Satav supervised the raiding team led by PI Barge. The team included API Vimal Bidwe, PSI Ashwini Jagtap, and several constables.