Now pimps with cellphones keep cops on their toes

Technology has once again come to the rescue of those violating the law. Earlier, it was the bootleggers, followed by bookies and now it is the pimps, who are using mobile phones to their advantage. Police say it is difficult for them to conduct raids as the pimps have no set-up and they manage the show on mobile phones.

Police say prostitution is rampant, but they are able to nab very few of them. For instance, last week the Crime Branch (CB) of Vadodara police had busted a prostitution racket. They arrested prostitutes and a pimp from a highway hotel outside city limits. Later in the week, residents of Tandalja area raided a house and handed over two sex workers and the pimps to the police. If police sources are to be believed, the railway station (far ends of the platforms) and the surroundings, Fatehgunj Circle, Jetalpur Road and Akota are some of the areas, where damsels can be picked at a cost at any time of the day.

The police say they are helpless. ‘‘If someone contacts a girl on a mobile phone and fixes a place, it just becomes an issue between consenting adults. How can we intervene? If we get a tip-off we act very fast, otherwise it is just shooting in the dark. Our plainclothes policemen and women do keep a tab on people behaving suspiciously in specific areas of the city, but they are very smart and know how to dodge questioning,’’ says an inspector.

In the last six months, the JP Road police have arrested more than 50 girls under Section 109 of the CrPC and they were produced before a magistrate. Police Inspector Kiritsinh Jhala says, ‘‘The concept of brothels is gone. It’s all a mobile business now. Farmhouses on the outskirts of the city, seedy hotels and even houses in residential societies are used. It’s difficult to keep a tab on every possible place.’’ Some estimates with the police say that there could be more than 100 regular girls from Vadodara working as prostitutes, with an added floating population coming from poorer regions of the country like Bengal and Bihar. ‘‘Implementation of SITA, the controversially named anti-prostitution law, is too complicated to be used as a routine to put a tab on the rampant trade,’’ says another PI.

S G Baria, the inspector with the Organised Crime Branch, which had conducted the raid recently at a hotel outside the city, though not sure of the statistics, does agree on the massive scale on which the trade is practised in the cultural capital of Gujarat.

‘‘Our informants are in place and you will see some action in the days to come,’’ says Baria.